Tuesday, January 6, 2015

Maps and destiny

The True Scale of North America Compared to Europe; Cities Transposed by Max Roser.

Click to enlarge.

Very nice. For decades I have been trying to introduce European (and Asian) friends to the scale and size of the USA with often notable lack of success. The locus of American cities is both more southern than European cities and more stretched East and West.

More than that, it is hard to convey the magnitude of the unity, by which I mean you can drive east and west three thousand miles and north and south a thousand five hundred miles and still be in the same language, law and culture. There are not many places in Europe, particularly Western Europe, where you can go more than a hundred miles without crossing a language, law or culture barrier (or all three).

How important are these geographical facts can be disputed but the magnitude cannot be gainsaid and these maps help establish that recognition.

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