Explore data-driven maps about climate, population, history, cities, travel and the world around us.
In 1650 the English colonies held about 50,000 people, while New Sweden never passed about 400. The maps show who settled where and which colonies were about to disappear.
Read more: The Americas in 1650, Just Before the Dutch and Swedish Colonies Ended
Greek cities spread from Spain to the Black Sea in roughly two centuries. This map shows the parent cities, the major colonies and who founded what.
Read more: Ancient Greek Colonies on the Map, From Marseille to Crimea
An animated cartogram follows world steel output from about 23,000 tonnes (25,400 short tons) in 1800 to 1,849 million tonnes (2,039 million short tons) in 2025. China now makes 52% of it.
Read more: 220 Years of Steel Production, Mapped From 1800 to 2025
Maps by VoteHub’s Josh Metcalf rank America’s 100 largest metro areas by 2024 margin and by change since 2016.
Read more: The Bluest, Reddest and Fastest-Changing US Metro Areas, 2016 to 2024
Three new maps track median monthly pay in 71 countries from 2000 to 2026, adjusted for purchasing power. Qatar tops the list at $6,312 a month, Venezuela the lowest at $100.
Read more: The Countries With the Highest and Lowest Wages in 2026
Median age ranges from under 18 in Africa to nearly 45 in Europe. This map and data breakdown covers every continent from 2000 through 2100 projections.
Read more: Median Age by Continent, Mapped From 2000 to 2100
A map of how Europe answers an unknown call shows just how differently each country greets a stranger on the line, from Italy’s ready to Poland’s I’m listening.
Read more: How Europe Answers the Phone
A new climate similarity map compares global bioclimatic data against a defined Camelot climate profile across 16 bioclimatic variables from WorldClim, sorting every region on Earth into five similarity bands.
Read more: Where Camelot’s Climate Actually Exists on Earth
Sri Lanka’s tea supply per person outweighs its coffee supply by about 225 times, the widest gap of any country in 2023. Turkey and China remain firmly tea dominant despite building two of the world’s fastest growing coffee markets. More than half of all countries with usable data lean toward coffee instead.
Read more: Tea vs Coffee by Country, Which One Actually Wins
Global coffee supply grew from 8,612 to 11,576 thousand tonnes between 2010 and 2023. The United States remained the largest market by volume throughout the period. Laos supplies more coffee per resident than almost any other country, at 22.59 kg (49.8 lbs) per person in 2023. China posted the fastest growth of any major market.
Read more: Coffee Consumption by Country in 2023 and How It Changed Since 2010
Kiribati’s government spends 98% of the country’s GDP, the highest share on earth. A cluster of wealthy European countries very nearly match that number, for an entirely unrelated reason.
Read more: The World’s Biggest Governments, Mapped
Global tea and mate supply grew from 11,476 to 33,091 thousand tonnes between 2010 and 2023. China and India together account for about 64 percent of the 2023 total. Sri Lanka leads every country in per capita consumption at 51.69 kg (114.0 lbs) per person. Vietnam and Turkiye posted the sharpest per capita gains of the period.
Read more: Tea Consumption by Country and How It Changed Since 2010
Geography gives us a starting point, but the actual idea of Eastern Europe comes from centuries of changing borders, politics, and shared traditions. We look at different maps, from the CIA to time zones, to show why this region is so hard to define.
Read more: Where Is Eastern Europe?