My Little Plot of Land on the Isle of Islay

I'm a big sucker for creative marketing, especially when it feels as though you are getting something in return. What more tangible thing is there to offer than land ownership? Laphroaig Scotch caught me hook line and sinker when they offered me a lifetime lease on the Isle of Islay, home of the Laphroaig distillery. The fact that I could view the exact location of my plot of land on a map was gravy.

Each new package of Laphroaig comes with instructions on how to claim your lifetime lease. The idea goes, everyone who buys a bottle of Laphroaig is entitled to a square foot of land. All you have to do to claim your spot is to register as a friend of Laphroaig. Of course I know this is volunteering some information, but who cares?!

After I registered I received a certificate with the lease arrangement whereby I can collect "rent" of a dram upon visiting the Islay. A copy of my certificate is below.




Pretty cool, I say.

What intrigued me most about his proces was the ability to see my little plot of land. Laphroaig has set up a cool tool which let's you zoom in to the distillery grounds and see your square foot of Islay. Unfortunately it looks like my square foot falls in a bit of a blind spot zone as you can see in the picture below. Look in the lower right corner.



Well, at least I can see ABOUT where it is and when I make it to Islay one day I'll be able to see it, because, don't you see, instructions on how to find your plot are part of the lease agreement too.

Pretty cool indeed!

Australia and the 24th Parallel

Being the WORLD Geo Blog, I reckon it's high time we have a post involving Australia, mate. Growing up, my thoughts of Australia most often involved kangaroos, Paul Hogan and the Coriolis effect, although not all at once. The latter was mostly because I realized how very far from down under I existed. Beginning with the miracle of the World Book Encyclopedia and culminating with panoramio photos in Google Earth, my views of Australia have expanded and matured, like a Laphroaig 30. ;)

While this doesn't qualify as a full blown nerd project like my last post on Twitter, inspired by Catholicgauze, it's still a fun way to visualize data!

My experience to this point with the Google Earth terrain profile was limited to testing running paths, cities or perhaps small mountains or lakes. Always looking for extremes, I went ahead and drew a much longer path today, 2,400 miles, in across Australia. I chose the 24th parallel because, well, that's where my mouse pointer first clicked. My thought was to find something significant about the parallel. Unfortunately, the southern 24th parallel is the Cooper Manning of parallels- never gaining the notoriety of its bigger brothers, the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn and dabbling on the edge of forgotten-paralleldom.

Below is a screen shot which shows the 24th parallel drawn across the Australian continent as well as its terrain. Never reaching more than 2600 ft with an average slope of about .2% Australia is the flattest continent. A fascinating continent, though, and one which will be the subject of posts to come on World Geo Blog.


For more detail, click on the image above.

In case you were wondering, yes, that is Membata marked by the blue anchor. :)

Military Might Map of the World

A personal indulgence of mine is to kick back with a glass of scotch and read about foreign affairs, particularly in Foreign Affairs and Foreign Policy magazines. The article "Africa's North Korea: Inside Eritrea's Open Air Prison" in the July/August Foreign Policy issue, written by Nathaniel Myers, really caught my attention.

I knew Eritrea has its share of political instability. It's also had a tumultuous history with its neighboring States, Ethiopia in particular. I did not, however, know the extent of the Eritrean army. The army is immense for, as Myers puts it, "one of Africa's most enchanting and unpredictable countries."

After some googling inspired by Myers' article, I found an interesting visualization of percentage of GDP spent on military. Cool, yes, but not quite what I was looking for. I wanted a map to compare the rate of active duty troops (per 1000 capita) in the countries of the world. Where does military might exude itself most in the fabric of the world's societies? To find out, I went ahead and made a map myself.

Below is a complete world map, a Robinson projection of course! Five continent maps follow to provide you with more detail on active duty troops per 1000 capita. The population was a 2009 estimate by Caliper Corporation and the military data came from a variety of sources, a list of which can be found here.

I've chosen to put the legend at the bottom of all the maps. I wanted to leave the maps free from clutter and the actual number (per 1000 capita) isn't as important as how a country relates to its neighbors and the rest of the world.















Here is a list of the top ten military countries by active duty troops per 1000 people.

1. Eritrea
2. North Korea
3. Israel
4. Vietnam
5. Singapore
6. United Arab Emirates
7. Lebanon
8. Brunei
9. Djibouti
10. Jordan

Eritrea is the big surprise and unquestionably the real story, but I already knew that thanks to Mr. Myers. I've listed a few notables that stood out for me below. What do you think? Is there a country you expected to have a high per capita military but does not?

Other Notables (out of 161)

29. Russia
50. USA
73. Pakistan
139. India
143. Tajikistan (I expected this to be much higher)

As much as I try to keep an eye on the events occurring across Africa and other developing countries, the information available is barely a trickle compared to the barrage of domestic news thrown at me. I'm always searching for a different side of the story and the lesser-known yet just as important happenings in the world. I ask you to help me find those lesser-known news sources, books and blogs! Your comments are appreciated.

And for those of you who would like another reason to indulge in a drink and a good read, might I suggest Laphroaig scotch whiskey.