Kenneth Field |
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Explore differences between adjacent countries on key global indicators and discover the socio-economic plates and fracture zones. Select different indicators from the layers control in the title panel.

Traditional thematic maps place great emphasis on countries but it’s much harder to explore how neighbouring countries compare. Here, country borders are used as linear proportional symbols to show the extent of dissimilarity between neighbouring countries. The map goes beyond land borders by including a range of fracture zones in seas and oceans to provide a way of displaying adjacency relationships for countries separated by water.

Borders are scaled to show a ratio of dissimilarity. The line thickness is a ratio calculated between adjacent countries. Countries that have very similar indicator values will have a ratio of 1:1. As the rates between countries increases, so the ratio between them increases. The original indicators are all normalized rates to ensure the data is on a comparative scale before the ratio is calculated.

There are four indicators for each of five categories: economy, disease and death, people and environment, technology and health

Note: A ratio of 1:0 indicates one or both of the countries has a value of 0 (zero). Where data is not reported the border is shown as white.

This web map is also available as a large poster print here.