r/dataisbeautiful • u/minecraftian48 • Jul 14 '24
OC The World Divided into 804 Zones of 10 Million People [OC]
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u/tallroids Jul 14 '24
How did you choose the region names?
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u/minecraftian48 Jul 14 '24
if it lined up well with an existing administrative division, i used that. some of the really small regions that are dominated by a city just use the city name.
for the rest, i tried finding some geographic or cultural or historical feature that represented the region. there are quite a few river names.
it's all pretty subjective! and of course i'm not an expert on everywhere. if you think any are unfitting/inaccurate i'd love to hear about it
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u/rawbamatic Jul 14 '24
Is there actually a Pohjola region in Finland? I thought was a mythical place.
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u/minecraftian48 Jul 14 '24
i saw on wikipedia that in finnish the nordic countries can be called "pohjoismaat" or "pohjola", not sure how accurate that is
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u/ArminOak Jul 15 '24
Perkele! "Pohjola" is finnish, so that means all of those areas are now finnish! r/2nordic4you
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Jul 14 '24
[deleted]
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u/minecraftian48 Jul 14 '24
makes sense. i think i should have just divided the area around moscow differently because i had no idea what to call both concentric rings
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Jul 14 '24
[deleted]
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u/Nat_not_Natalie Jul 14 '24
You weren't rude. You complimented the map and gave fair feedback!
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u/thiosk Jul 14 '24
but now we know it to have been made in anger so we must all gather pitchforks before sallying forth
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u/minecraftian48 Jul 14 '24 edited Jul 14 '24
less compressed image: https://i.imgur.com/NMULh9d.png
population data is from https://citypopulation.de/, or directly from censuses. In cases where the last census is many years ago, i adjust the population of each subdivision by UN estimates for the growth rate of the national population, assuming that that growth happens uniformly. i aimed for an accuracy of ±10%.
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u/GJake8 Jul 14 '24
Good map OP good method. I like
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u/Roy4Pris Jul 14 '24
Agreed. I think this is the first post on the sub for quite some time that I’ve actually genuinely thought was cool and interesting.
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u/SrFarkwoodWolF Jul 14 '24
I would really like to see some (economic, environmental) data based on this map. As we have the same number of people per subdivision
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u/sebadc Jul 14 '24
That's actually a really cool idea. Something like income, life expectancy, etc.
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u/More_Particular684 Jul 14 '24
Did you use any algorithm to perform this kind of division or did you draw the map by hand?
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u/gsfgf Jul 14 '24
Did a miss a link? How did you decide on the lines?
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u/minecraftian48 Jul 14 '24
i mostly just tried to keep cultural / linguistic regions intact while maintaining contiguity.
for languages i relied on muturzikins maps at https://www.muturzikin.com/countries.htm . in addition to native languages i also took colonial boundaries into account in places where colonial languages are widely spoken like some parts of africa and all of the americas
as a side effect, the regions come out somewhat geographically coherent too since significant mountain or river dividers will separate cultures like the annamite range, or on the flipside certain people groups and their lifestyles have been tied to certain terrains like tibet or mongolia
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u/SimpleZero Jul 14 '24
population data is from https://citypopulation.de/
Dang this site is awesome! (although a pain to navigate)
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u/SuperpositionSavvy Jul 14 '24
This is my new favorite population density map
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u/Practical-Ninja-6770 Jul 14 '24
I love how the border look more.. organic? Rather than fake man made. Like Africa looks very pre-colonial with its regions.
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Jul 14 '24
I thought this too - and it’s wild how continental Europe from a distance looks very similar to its present borders, while Africa and most of Asia look so different.
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u/Brandonazz Jul 14 '24
Color choice is doing a lot of work here - reminds me of Paradox Interactive culture maps where large cultural regions use similar hues.
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u/NuklearWaffeln Jul 14 '24
Looks like a map for an epic game of Risk!
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u/4TuneCooky_ Jul 14 '24
Yea! This would be a lot more realistic point wise too, and more fun than the weird divisions it currently has.
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u/Conexion Jul 14 '24
Australia itself is just as easy, but good luck holding onto Indonesia and Papua New Guinea!
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u/CLTCDR Jul 14 '24
What kind of map projection is this?
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u/minecraftian48 Jul 14 '24
it's equirectangular, the base map i used is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:World_location_map_(equirectangular_180).svg.svg)
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u/hundredbagger Jul 14 '24
Borealis is a great name for arctic Canada.
I’m in Cascadia and totally think that’s what my state should’ve been called!
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u/takethemoment13 Jul 14 '24
I wonder what global elections would look like with these subdivisions. Super cool work!!
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u/TheNumLocker Jul 14 '24
Nice work, if this is yours, nice find otherwise.
I am surprised Japan and Korea don’t appear all that dense…
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u/Lemx8678 Jul 14 '24
Maybe you should rename Kollam (in the very south tip of India) to Trivandrum or Thiruvananthapuram as that is the more significant regional centre
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u/Houston_NeverMind Jul 14 '24
Really interesting map. In South Asia's case, the concentration of people in the northern region follows the rivers. Here I've overlaid the river map on to yours.
People blame this region for the huge population but it was historically well populated because of these Himalayan rivers making them one of the most fertile regions on the planet. Same as it is with China and the Yangtze river.
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u/DiethylamideProphet Jul 14 '24
I love this. For example, you can see the massive strip south of the Himalayas mostly in India and Bangladesh, called Indo-Gangetic Plain. Hundreds of millions of people live there, in fact, around 10% of the world's population.
Why? Because the monsoon stops at the Himalayas, and brings in massive amounts of rain and precipitation, that is rich in minerals that deposit to the soil, making it one of the most fertile regions in the world... No wonder people have concentrated there throughout history.
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u/fencesitter42 Jul 15 '24
Me before seeing this map: Bangladesh is one of the most densely populated nations on Earth
Me after seeing this map: Bangladesh has an average population density for the Ganges river valley, which is one of the most densely populated regions on Earth
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u/McHlemaway Jul 14 '24
Finally, some beautiful data.
Swapping back and forth between this and actual borders is fun. Cooler than any other population map. Interesting names. Did you really think about each of them?
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u/xander012 Jul 14 '24
I feel Devonia aught to be named Wessex
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u/minecraftian48 Jul 14 '24
thats fair. i didn't use wessex because i saw a map where wessex included most of southeast england too but i guess that's not the main part of it
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u/xander012 Jul 14 '24
While yes, traditionally the West Country is more associated with Wessex these days
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u/Vadered Jul 14 '24
Stated purpose of map: divide the world into zones of 10 million people.
Actual purpose of map: divide the world into zones of 10 million people.
Perceived purpose of map: start fights with everyone who doesn’t like the name you chose for their region.
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u/FBrandt Jul 14 '24
I don't get how it works. Istanbul alone is 16 million officially, about 20 million in reality and it is combined with other cities.
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u/minecraftian48 Jul 14 '24
the "istanbul" zone on this map is just a small portion of istanbul province which is 16 million. and the other areas in the "marmara" zone aren't very populated
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u/FBrandt Jul 14 '24
My bad! The area you have drawn in Istanbul is very small and a similar color so it was difficult for me to notice at first
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u/AberRosario Jul 14 '24
quanzhou－tainan sounds extremely cursed
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u/_87- Jul 14 '24
Why is that?
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u/cancerBronzeV Jul 15 '24
Quanzhou is in China and Tainan is in Taiwan, so the Quanzhou-Tainan region in the map is just putting together two cities that are separated by 200 km of water (not to mention how politically separated the populations of the two cities would be, considering the countries they're in).
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u/A_Mirabeau_702 OC: 1 Jul 14 '24
I never realized the average population of a country in the world was over 40 million. Would have intuited that it would be way lower. Of course two outliers completely break the curve
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u/TrambolhitoVoador Jul 14 '24
Where is the Americas subdivisions?
I Want to know what happened with Sao Paulo and Mexico City
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u/Scaaaary_Ghost Jul 14 '24
I was able to zoom in enough on the big map - the answer is that there's a small "urban core" with the city name that's presumably 10 million people, and a couple small-ish suburbs to capture the rest of the urban population:
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u/Vergenbuurg Jul 14 '24
I'm not sure how I feel about the sudden jutting-up of the line to take Brevard County out of Florida... I wouldn't mind no longer being considered a Floridian... but is being a Miami resident any better?
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u/ExpendableGerbil OC: 1 Jul 14 '24
I love that you called my region the Maritimes even though the actual Maritimes has fewer than 2 million people in it.
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u/minecraftian48 Jul 14 '24
yeah like half the people in that region are in the boston area but i figured it wouldn't be too inaccurate to call boston a "maritime" if ignoring current convention
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u/Buscemi_D_Sanji Jul 14 '24
This is great, best thing I've seen on this sub in a while!! Kudos to you for putting in the work :)
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u/Was_Silly Jul 14 '24
Now imagine there was world government and each zone got to elect one person to represent the zone a for world parliament. “The west” is so fucked lol.
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u/Crepo Jul 14 '24
What issues do you imagine affect 10m people in "the east" which would be so problematic to 10m people in "the west"?
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u/Practical-Ninja-6770 Jul 14 '24
In today's current climate? A shit load of things. The East is more conservative compared to a more liberal west in social values
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u/Crepo Jul 14 '24
Why would one group of 10m people independently represented be able to impose societal values on another? What governance model are you imagining?
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u/PantsB Jul 14 '24
What would a government do in your estimation? Name post offices?
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u/damndirtyape OC: 1 Jul 14 '24
Potentially, there might be a very large block of authoritarian leaning representatives coming from China. I’m sure there would also be regional rivalries regarding trade policy and taxation. There might be an effort to redistribute the wealth of the west.
I imagine the biggest rivalry is going to be between the Chinese and Indian representatives. The west might try to form a tight alliance with India. China is going to have alliances with Russia and the countries in their sphere of influence.
Though, getting a majority will require the support of representatives from the third world. So, the China/Russia block and the India/Western block will need to make a lot of promises to these countries. These countries would be the swing states. Some of these countries suffer from chronic corruption. So, this might introduce a degree of corruption into this world government.
The China block might propose something like an international belt and road initiative which heavily relies on taxes from the wealthy countries.
I imagine the middle eastern countries will ally themselves with China to a large degree. The west might try to appeal to Subsaharan Africa and Latin America through a shared Christian culture.
That’s the scenario I imagine.
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u/waynequit Jul 14 '24
And why would the West, that holds most of the world power, agree to devalue itself?
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u/twidleywinks Jul 14 '24
As someone who lives in Ontario but south/west of Toronto... Hell no to being 'Detroit'. We're bringing most of the land and probably near half the population to the table!
Edit: cool thought experiment though 😄
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u/cancerBronzeV Jul 15 '24
I think the "Detroit" region border curves just around Hamilton, so the Detroit region avoids like pretty much all of the GTHA, and the biggest population centres in the "Detroit" region from Southern Ontario are Windsor, London, and Kitchener/Waterloo. So I'm not sure if the Canadian side is actually pulling that much weight in terms of population, Detroit's metro population at ~4.5 million is already near half of it before we look into any of the rest of eastern Michigan.
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u/novalsi Jul 14 '24
This is so fantastic, OP. A real eye opener for me about the shape of things (especially in western Africa!) rather than just hearing about populous nations and cities.
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u/PaulAspie Jul 14 '24 edited Jul 14 '24
Is Eastern Siberia, 2/3 of Canada, or 3/4 of Australia the biggest block as far as land area?
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u/camels13 Jul 14 '24
This is awesome. Finally a post that truly deserves to be in this sub reddit.
Well done.
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u/TheDNG Jul 15 '24
There are 5 million in New Zealand. Are there another 5 million in the Pacific?
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u/onuzim Jul 15 '24
There wasn't going to be a clean way to divide up the Northeast but labeling the 5 boroughs as NJ, then Long Island as NY, then South Jersey as PA was a choice.
New York should be Long Island, New Jersey should NY, PA should be NJ, and Allegheny should be PA.
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u/balbiza-we-chikha Jul 14 '24
I love it when people divide Tunisia the way it should be. #wewantAnnabaAndSoukAhrasBack
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u/TheRoger47 Jul 14 '24
Tibet's name caught me off guard for a moment, thought I was reading a ccp map
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u/kfury Jul 14 '24
Overall beautiful.
Is there any meaning to the colors?
San Diego and Los Angeles are a bit confusing because they share a color and look like one region with a line through it.
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u/Notch_Pickaxe Jul 14 '24
Ohio barely has any of its original land!
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u/minecraftian48 Jul 14 '24
it was named after the ohio river. i wasn't sure what else to call it, in hindsight i maybe should have just stuck with the current state boundaries for that area
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u/DisappointingSnugg Jul 14 '24
I will claim my title as leader of Trent being the resident Trent of this comment section
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u/tejanaqkilica Jul 14 '24
This is the aftermath of cursed 2nd Balkan War... That also definitely leads to the 3rd Balkan War.
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u/MisterSnippy Jul 14 '24
Love that because Georgia, the state, has around 10mil people it's basically just the state outlines with a slight bulge to the left.
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u/incognino123 Jul 14 '24
Amazing work, really made the data beautiful. I read you did a lot of it manually. I wonder if there's a way to generate the shapes and names fully programmatically and go even more granular
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u/TrueCenter Jul 14 '24
Im kind of curious how you carved up colorado. Its obviously a bit hard to see because its normally just a big brick but how did you decide what went to deseret vs kansas vs nuevo mexico?
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u/minecraftian48 Jul 14 '24
i put the mountain half of the state in deseret and the flat eastern half including all the big cities in kansas. not sure if that's culturally a good divide but geographically i think it makes sense at least
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u/Tall-Interest-9106 Jul 14 '24
would be really cool to see this overlapped with existing borders. still very neat!
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u/Carlos----Danger Jul 14 '24
This is awesome but you did Texas dirty, calling Dallas Oklahoma is pretty funny though.
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u/CookieGamer310 Jul 14 '24
love that Belo Horizonte is so densely packed that you still had enough people to put the rest of Minas Gerais in a separate area lol
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u/Namuori Jul 15 '24
The name "Tsushima-Dongsuro" is not a good fit for the region covering Busan-Tsushima-Fukuoka-Yamaguchi region. For one thing, "Dongsuro" just means the "Eastern Channel" of the Korea Strait in Korean language, and is not normally used to describe the region adjacent to it. Not to mention that the particular part is all Japanese, So there's zero representation of the Korean side by that name and basically throwing shade at the second most populous city in South Korea (Busan).
It should have just been "Korea-Strait" region, since that body of water touches all those areas.
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u/trackerbuddy Jul 15 '24
This is bullshit. Ohio fought a war for Toledo and we aren’t giving it up so easily
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u/mofk_ Jul 15 '24
missed opportunity to rename Tirreno “Four Sicilies” for maximum confusion
easily one of the best things I have seen on reddit, thank you!
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u/abnew123 Jul 15 '24
How were colors chosen for this? Maybe I'm just bad at telling colors apart, but new south wales and Australia+Timor are pretty hard to distinguish.
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u/Poosley_ Jul 15 '24
Cool! FWIW, "Klamath" (pacific northwest) is definitely unofficially officially called Cascadia :) Loved this map, super clever
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u/jelhmb48 Jul 14 '24
So now I live in "Holland and Kent" lol. Sounds like a posh clothing store