Seeing Africa

Interesting and useful: 8 Maps That Will Change the Way You Look at Africa. The site explains:

Africa is on the cusp of one of the most significant demographic shifts in human history. Now home to 1.11 billion people, the continent is projected to more than double in population over the next 35 years, while growth elsewhere slows (parts of Asia, Latin America) and even reverses (Western Europe, Japan). But without economic growth that’s fairly distributed, most of the kids born there will be consigned to grow up into a life of extreme poverty.

The first map shows the real size of Africa in relation to the real size of other countries, including the United States, something we don’t see right on the usual mercator map. The continent is a lot, lot bigger than the United States. Another shows the population by income distribution, another showing us “ what the world would look like if it were sized according to economic wealth,” and so on.