'Atlas of Curious Maps'.
Martin Vargic is the author of Atlas of Curious Maps. A cartography of the modern world (Ed. Geoplanet), a total of 64 curious and fun maps to understand our century.
A job that has taken him years to finish because it is not easy to know things as peculiar as in which country have a greater penis length (men from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, with an average of 18 cm) or the larger breast size (most are in Russia with a D cup) ; either In which country do more couples get divorced? (in Belarus 68%) or which of all is the happiest (Finland and Norway) .
Starting from the basis of great traditional maps and of the atlas of antiquity , allows you to embark on a journey through the modern world. The first category comprises nine maps: stereotypes, video games, video websites, catastrophes, sports, corporations, music and literature.
Medium maps encompass paranormal phenomena common foods, extinct animals wave pro-independence Europe . And finally small unique maps of the real world like those mentioned above.
An atlas to understand the world.
“I started drawing my own fantasy maps When I was 10 years old. When I was 16 years old, I created the first ones with enough quality to catch the attention of the general public. Making digital maps, infographics, and eventually books quickly became my full-time job shortly after that," the young author tells Traveler.es.
This atlas is a basic to understand the century in which we find ourselves, for example there is nothing more current than knowing through a map What is the country that consumes the most meat products? . Thanks to Martin's work we know that Uruguayans are the ones who consume more beef per year, about 59 kg per inhabitant , but the inhabitants of Luxembourg they are the ones that consume the most meat in general, about 136 kg per person. In the case of New Zealand there are more cows than people.
As a result of this map we can consult the one that speaks about the world's top fast food chains . Subway is the largest fast food franchise of all, with 44,200 establishments , but McDonald's is the one that covers the largest territory, especially in the North Asia, Europe and in South America.
The map of video websites.
What if we talk about obesity? We will see that the 5 most obese countries are in the Pacific Ocean . The American Samoa It has the highest percentage of obese in the world with 95% of people suffering from overweight.
The biggest cause of death is cardiovascular diseases , which on the map seem to be spread all over the world. Cancer is the second in the entire planet and the first in France.
"The music map and the literature map They are probably the ones that took me the longest because I spent several months on each one,” says Martin. This itself shows that pop is the best-selling and most widespread musical genre in Europe and by countries like Japan or China.
Nevertheless, rock is the most listened to in Finland, Russia and Canada. In fact, the first country is the one that holds the first position with the most heavy metal groups per capita: 54 per 100,000 inhabitants.
Curious fact: South Africa is the country where the most electronic music listening.
The map of literature.
And your favorite map? “The map of literature is my favorite. I have recently reworked, expanded and updated it so it can be sold as a poster.” It explores the transformation and evolution of written works, from early epics to YA novels.
It is divided into four sections: drama, poetry, fiction and non-fiction . In addition, it presents the most influential writers, poets and playwrights in European and American literature. Guess which one is the best seller? Shakespeare with 3 million Y Agatha Christie with 2,500 million . While the best selling book is History of two cities of Charles Dickens with 200 million.
About literature, we can know that Iceland is the country with the most book authors per capita In fact, 1 in 10 Icelanders will publish a book in her lifetime.
Maps of alcohol and marijuana consumption in the world.
The map of marijuana use is another of the most curious that can be found in the book Atlas of Curious Maps. A cartography of the modern world (Ed.Geoplanet). Canada and USA are the largest consumers of cannabis, so is Ghana in Africa.
And if we talk about drug addiction we find that Iran is in the lead About 2% of the population is addicted to drugs.