Tag Archives: map

Postcode fun

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I downloaded the longitude and latitude of all the UK postcodes from Free Map Tools and imported them into Excel. Inspired by dy/dan’s excellent “What Can You Do With This?” segment I started playing around with the data.

When I first plotted the data they didn’t look like much:

postcodes-version1

But with the scale adjusted a picture starts to form:

postcodes-version2

The red marker in the “map” below shows the mean average of the postcodes.

postcodes-version3

Because postcodes have to cluster around centres of population the mean marker shows the UK’s approximate centre of population; the clustering is clearly visible around major cities such as London, Birmingham, Glasgow and Liverpool.

The clustering effect also explains why Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, with population densities of  65, 141 and 125 people per square kilometre respectively, are much less well-defined than England which has an average density of 380 people per square kilometre [source].

For fun, I also added a line-of-best-fit and the median point. I’m not sure they really mean anything but, hey, I was on a roll.

postcodes-version4

Worldmapper

Worldmapper is a website that gives you the world “as you’ve never seen it before”.

Land Area

This is the map of the world you’re familiar with; the size of the country on the map represents the size of the country in real life:

Land Area Map

Population

This is the same map, but now the size of the country represents the country’s population:

Population Map

Notice how China and India, with huge populations and (relatively) not much land have ballooned in size whereas countries like Australia with lots of land but small populations have shrunk.

Nuclear Weapons

Most countries disappear completely:

Nuclear Weapons Map

The United States and Russia, with nearly 6000 warheads each are both enormous compared to the smaller nuclear states: the United Kingdom, France, China, India, Pakistan and Israel.

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