Maps are great, but they're not always the best way to show information. Americans are used to seeing national statistics in the form of 50-state maps, and world maps are notoriously problematic. The issues mostly boil down to:
Pixel density is a poor proxy for numeric significance.
Visual comparisons between non-neighboring states are problematic, particularly in choropleths.
Cartograms are a potential fix for the pixel density problem, but the spatial comparison issue is inherent to cartography. There are lots of bad maps out there, but there are also good ones. We could discuss mapping best practices to avoid common pitfalls, but I think it's more important to focus on augmenting maps with other displays. Even the best maps aren't good enough as canonical visualizations; we need to start putting our maps alongside charts and graphs that help people understand the data better than a map can communicate it.
Maps are great, but they're not always the best way to show information. Americans are used to seeing national statistics in the form of 50-state maps, and world maps are notoriously problematic. The issues mostly boil down to:
Cartograms are a potential fix for the pixel density problem, but the spatial comparison issue is inherent to cartography. There are lots of bad maps out there, but there are also good ones. We could discuss mapping best practices to avoid common pitfalls, but I think it's more important to focus on augmenting maps with other displays. Even the best maps aren't good enough as canonical visualizations; we need to start putting our maps alongside charts and graphs that help people understand the data better than a map can communicate it.