Brilliant Maps: An Atlas for Curious Minds

Published by Granta Books, 2021, softcover, illustrated, 210 pages, condition: new.

"Brilliant" is right. This beautifully laid out book by map enthusiast Ian Wright is every cartophile's dream. The book is basically 100 maps,  organized  into categories such as "People and Populations," "Nature," and "Friends and Enemies."

In the foreword, Wright explained that he defined "popular" as "the most talked-about maps, the ones that seemed especially to strike a nerve with readers." Some of these maps went viral. Unsurprisingly, maps having to do with politics and national identity were some of the most popular over the last five years.

Wright didn't assume his readers already know the location of each country and each U.S. state; the inside front cover features a map of the world with each country labeled, and the inside back cover features the United States with each state labeled. All maps are logically constructed, bold, and clean. I loved many but especially enjoyed these eight:

"The astounding drop in global fertility rates from 1970 to 2015"

"More than half of the Australian population lives here" (map of Australia)

"50% of Canadians live south of the red line"

"Percentage of people born in each European country now living abroad"

"Average female height worldwide"

"Average male height worldwide"

"The highest speed limits around the world"

"The Pacific Ocean is larger than all the land on Earth"

Graphics can be powerful in getting across important information and I love how Brilliant Maps for Curious Minds relays information so effectively without being at all text-heavy. I wish this were a never-ending book. I'm sure other map-lovers would feel exactly the same.