Mayotte: The EU’s—and France’s—Troubled New Exclave

On March 31, 2011, the European Union expanded, adding 144 square miles (374 km2) and almost 200,000 persons. The population of this new UE territory is almost entirely Muslim (97 per cent). It is also, by European standards, quite poor, with a nominal per capita GDP of only US $6,500. Oddly, the land in question is not even physically located in Europe, situated …

The Geography of Capital Punishment

Capital punishment has featured prominently in the global news in recent weeks, due both to the execution of Troy Davis in Georgia and to the scheduled hanging of three men in India convicted of killing prime minister Rajiv Gandhi in 1991. One reason for this attention is the relative rarity of the death penalty. Many

Global Economic Convergence? The Economist’s Unfortunate GDP Map

Last week’s (Sept. 24, 2011) issue of The Economist magazine featured a special report on the world economy, the central thesis of which is that the globe is currently undergoing a “great convergence in living standards,” pushed forward as “poorer countries speedily adopt the technology, know-how, and policies that made the West rich” (page 3)

Problems with Global Infrastructure Rankings

September 17th 2011 article in The Economist stresses the inadequacy of Colombia’s transportation system, arguing that poor roads hold back the country’s economic growth. As evidence of the severity of the problem, the author notes that in terms of overall infrastructure, Colombia comes out “79th of 139 countries’ networks ranked by the World Economic Forum.”

Demic Atlas Visualization and Geospatial Data

An interactive visualization of the Demic Atlas is now available on the website of the Stanford Spatial History Project, thanks to the unceasing efforts of Anne Fredell and Jake Coolidge. By clicking on the grey boxes on the page, one can toggle back and forth between demic and state-based world maps of per capita GDP

A Global North/South Division in the Demic Framework?

As has been argued previously on GeoCurrents, the commonplace notion that the world is starkly divided between a prosperous and powerful “global north” and an impoverished and underdeveloped “global south” (with Australia and New Zealand forming southern outposts of the north) receives little support from world maps of socio-economic development. As can be seen in

Concluding Posts on the Demic Atlas

Dear Readers,

The Demic Atlas project will conclude at the end of this week; next week’s posts will return to the standard GeoCurrents model, examining local issues of geographical significance. Today’s map merely shows which island groups are associated with which regions in the demic framework. As the map is self-explanatory, no further comment

The Human Development Index (HDI) in the State-Based and Demic Frameworks

The Human Development Index (HDI) is the most widely used method of assessing the overall level of human wellbeing across the planet. Today’s post examines HDI rankings in the demic and state-based frameworks. As is the case in regard to GDP measurements, the demic map portrays broad regional patterns of development relatively well, while missing

Global GDP in PPP, State-Based and Demic Frameworks

The next set of maps depicts global GDP variation within the demic framework, contrasting nominal and PPP evaluations. The differences found between the two maps are minor yet instructive. In purchasing power terms, the petroleum-rich zone in west central Africa slips down one color category, reflecting the unbalanced nature of local oil-based economies

Per Capita GDP (Nominal) in the Demic and State-Based Frameworks

Despite such limitations, per capita GDP remains the most common metric of economic development, and it is therefore employed on our first set of maps. For purposes of immediate comparison, the two maps use the same color scheme and divide the data into the same number of categories, based in both cases on