London's Twitter Languages. Twitter Languages of the World.
posted by Gordafarin on Oct 25, 2012 - 14 comments

How the World Was Imagined: Early Maps and Atlases — Depictions of the world from the Iron Age to the Age of Discovery and the emergence of modern geography. From Socks Studio, who have been producing great feature after feature.
posted by netbros on Jun 12, 2012 - 19 comments

"Countries are defined by the lines that divide them. But how are those lines decided — and why are some of them so strange? Borderlines [a New York Times column by Frank Jacobs of Strange Maps] explores the stories behind the global map, one line at a time." The latest in the series: "The Loneliness of the Guyanas," and the inaugural essay, "In Praise of Borders."
posted by ocherdraco on Jan 17, 2012 - 17 comments

The official Google Earth plugin is one free download that makes all sorts of cool stuff possible in your browser. There's a full screen version of the program (complete with underwater views and 3D buildings) which can be searched by entering queries at the end of the URL. There's a framed version with support for layers, historical imagery, day/night cycles, and the Google Sky starmap. Less useful but more fun are Google's collection of "experiments" demonstrating the possibilities of the Earth API, including a "Geo Whiz" geography quiz, an antipode locater, a 3D first-person view of San Francisco, a virtual route-follower, and MONSTER MILKTRUCK!, a crazy fun driving simulator that lets you careen a virtual milk truck through the Googleplex campus, ricochet off the Himalayas, or explore any other place you care to name. Lots more can be found in the Google Earth Gallery -- highlights include a look at mountaintop removal mining, a real-time flight tracker, a guide to trails and outdoor recreation, a 360 panorama catalog, geotagged Panoramio photos, and the comprehensive crowdsourced Google Earth Community Layer. And while it's too large to view online, don't miss loading the Metafilter user location map into a desktop version of Google Earth! [more inside]
posted by Rhaomi on Jun 9, 2011 - 15 comments

Europe according to... is a project to map stereotypes of European countries according to other countries and groups of people. [more inside]
posted by desjardins on Sep 22, 2010 - 57 comments

Ilike2learn.com has a series of simply-wrought yet wonderfully mind-bending Map quizzes: check out North America if you're looking for a confidence booster, relive forth-grade geography by going through state capitals or impress friends with your knowledge of the European Peninsula. Find out how little you know about Africa and Asia, then peruse the mind-fuck that is Oceania. Heck, they even have capitals, oceans, lakes, rivers and mountains for the truly adventurous. The world's a big place!
posted by ignorantguru on Mar 22, 2008 - 25 comments

Know your world? [via and from]
posted by Orange Pamplemousse on Nov 20, 2007 - 37 comments

In the 19th century, English author Favell Mortimer wrote several books describing various countries to children. Apparently she didn't travel much. [more inside]
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane on Oct 2, 2007 - 34 comments

Inspired by Ironic Sans's 50 States Game comes the more worldly (and difficult) 245 Countries in 10 minutes. Also pairs well with the previously posted GeoSense.

(Caveats/Minor Spoilers: Game has some questionable choices, like making you type in the long form of the country's name, i.e. "People's Republic of", rather than the common usage name. Some countries have "The" in front of them. Also, your spelling must be perfect, which can trip you up for those obscure island nations, and countries you know but don't know the exact spelling of. Good Luck!)
posted by wander on Mar 4, 2007 - 64 comments

Nation Master An amazing resource that displays all sorts of comparative national statistics on practically everything, and with an option of selecting any region / list of countries you choose. It plugs itself as "The world's biggest general stat site" (which might or might not be true I don't know), and it has a wealth of data on economics, sports, population, geography and a dozen more categories. Some interesting statistics; Top 100 in Olympic medals per Capita. Top 100 Murders with firearms (per capita). Top 100 Military Expenditures as a percent of GDP . Top 100 Net migration rate .
A heaven for data freaks.
posted by talos on Jul 10, 2003 - 30 comments