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Map O' The Day #50 - How China Sees The World

The fiftieth installment of MOTD hails from the cover of my favorite periodical, The Economist, March 21-27, 2009 edition, and is illustrated by artist Jon Berkeley.

In light of instability in the global market, the information presented within the graphics is both topical and foreboding. And while the central theme of the graphic is, as the title aptly states, a Chinese perspective towards the world, this issue is not the driving cause for anointing this image as the 50th MOTD.

Rather, what struck me about this graphic, was that it is basically constructed of a basic landscape architecture and a few well placed labels, and yet, it’s chockfull of information pertaining to foreign policy, international conflicts, and economic woes. What the artist has accomplished with this work is a fairly comprehensive high level snapshot of China’s decision-making environment, through a masterful use of four central tenets of information mapping: Representation, Sizing, Placement and Selection.

With those four lenses, take the time to re-examine the image, and you’ll quickly realize the sheer breadth of information a information graphic conveys when attention to principle is upheld.
























1976 New Yorker graphic