"40 Maps That Will Help You Make Sense of the World."

Please check these out. Spend as much time as you like. Then, I'd like to ask you a question. Don't click "more" until you've looked at the maps.

Which map did you spend the most time with? Which maps drew you in? Looking back at my experience with these maps, it occurred to me that this functioned as a sort of a personality test, though I'm not ready to spell out what your results are. I'll just say where I became absorbed:

By far, I spent the most time with "4. Map of ‘Pangea’ with Current International Borders." The other 2 that absorbed me were "23. If the World’s Population Lived in One City" and "38. The Longest Straight Line You Can Sail on Earth."

Some of them I skipped right over because they gave me that feeling that an annoying ideologue was urging me to get outraged about something.

"I apologize if this seems disrespectful, but if Bush is really never rescued, I'd prefer to imagine him as the hero of a Jules Verne novel..."

"... exploring the fantastical landscapes of Hollow Earth, fighting blind cave apes, and saving Theda Bara from the assassin priests of some subterranean cult."

I'd like to see the science fiction movie called "The Karst."

Where are you on the Karst map?

Scientists think they've found the lost continent of Mauritia, underneath the Indian Ocean.

It was once part of the supercontinent known as Rodinia, which looked like this as it was breaking up 750 million years ago:



See Mauritia in there between what was on its way to becoming India and what became Madagascar? How do they know it's Mauritia? According to the linked article, it has to do with zircon.



It all fits together.