Guess The Map

https://i.ibb.co/r4717SD/map.png

I want a try at one of these

oooh, good idea! Stumped, though.

• Doesn't appear to be anything natural like crops, since green covers everything from the Dominican Republic to Russia.

• Doesn't appear to be anything political or related to human rights.

• It doesn't look like any current or former UK possessions are noted, but there are plenty of non-UK places like Brazil unmarked.

oooh, good idea! Stumped, though.

― StanM, Wednesday, March 20, 2024 6:48 AM bookmarkflaglink

Yeah, can we get a hint?

do Turkmenistan, Angola, Syria, Cameroon have a secret Eurovision type song competition we don't know about?

Based on reverse frequency I'm assuming Chartreuse > Violet > Green ?

Nailed it!
It's favourite colours by country.

Ha! countries collaborating on an international Mardi Gras celebration?

Yeah, can we get a hint?

It isn't really a hint but I can remove some noise. After doing some research I think the purple and yellow are red herrings and should be ignored. It is only the green countries that share this thing in common.

Is it a sports thing?

Is it consumption of a food stuff?

Those couple dozen round dots, mostly gray but a few green, and many of them in the ocean, would not be there meaninglessly. There's a whole slew of them in the southern Caribbean. Meanwhile, North America as a whole seems to be considered irrelevant. A profoundly strange map!

Yeah, Peru, Algeria, Russia... ?

I suspect the dots are just the cartographer's attempt at making small countries show up rather than being a separate category of map data.

http://weeklymap.org for more stuff like this btw (don't think it's updated anymore but 111 puzzles is plenty...)

Yet some of those dots show up within larger countries, which confuses matters even further.

They're small countries I think. Luxembourg, San Marino, Isle of Man, etc.

Maybe a clue in the ABC islands: Curacao is green but Bonaire and Aruba are grey...

that's the world

are all the green nations ones that criminalise or legislate against the civil rights of LGBT people?

I'm suspecting a Russian sphere of influence because of Eastern Europe + MENA + Venezuela.
Is it something stupid like plugs ?
Or maybe something with trade

Working notes:
- Rwanda and Burundi are an exception in Central / East Africa
- Yemen also an exception
- Indonesia + Malaysia and Ghana the only green in their respective regions
- Guatemala, Panama, Peru, Venezuela, Dominican Republic, one island

I'm gonna guess Russian oil & gas consumers.

Whatever it is, none of the postwar/pre-Soviet collapse western democracies have it. And maybe it's the more socially conservative countries that have it? That makes me wonder if it's not a socio-legal thing.

xpost - surely China and India would be Russian oil/gas consumers?

also cuba, and probably not mauritius

Another pointer to this being a legal thing is the ABC countries - Curacao is green whereas Aruba and Bonaire are not. That corresponds with Aruba and Bonaire being under Dutch law whereas Curacao has its own constitution and legal system. Could it be something to do with taxation? Or maybe age of consent, divorce laws, same-sex laws or something like that.

only thing i can think of is 'served on some fucked-up UN committee like that for human rights'

I'm thinking Calzino is right and it's something to do with LGBT rights. Maps on same-sex marriage or adoption rights look very similar.

Thing is, Japan has atrocious LGBT recognition iirc, and so would have some kind of colouring.

yeah no...

LGBT rights in Yemen

Same-sex sexual activity is punishable by death; this law is applied to both men and women. Members of the LGBT community additionally face stigmatization and homophobic violence among the broader population. A provincial court in Yemen sentenced several people to death for engaging in homosexual acts in 2024.

That pesky Yemen!

That pesky Russia!

Perú and Ecuador are both green. They hate each other and don't have a lot in common besides geography and language.

kinda feel like it has to be tied to oil production, or dependency on it for each country's economy

Nothing of substance (or more herrings), but just noting that the Russian Arctic islands aside from Severny appear uniquely cobalt blue.

Those are herrings, Green is all that matters.

I won't give a hint yet as there is activity, and it will be more satisfying for someone to get there without one if possible

Although it may be something of an unknown hint I haven't worked out what the yellow/purple is (whereas blue is just an anomaly). There was no key on the map and when I checked for myself only the green countries met the condition. so maybe the purple/yellow countries used to meet the condition or will meet the condition in the future but that is pure speculation I actually don't know. So they're not necessarily herrings but wouldn't focus on them too much, green is definitely correct and blue is definitely a herring

is this map pulled from somewhere or is it something you generated?

Its a map I pulled from somewhere

from your ass?

“Countries in which it is legal to pay a trapeze artist less than standard minimum wage”

“Countries with samovars or samovar-type tea brewing”

“Countries where cats are more popular than dogs, as pets”

“Countries where ‘Peter’ is more common than ‘John’”

Anvil the real answer had better be good I puzzled and googled this for over an hour last night

ILX: come for the zings, stay for the comparison of legal systems between Aruba and Curacao...

Is it amount of inward investment by China in these countries?

How old is this map? South Sudan isn't marked, though it may be covered up by that yellow blob.

I think the map is from 2020, but its accurate for today.

South Sudan is on the map isn't it? I assume the map is just a base template map

wait, I have it! Is it Earth?

Surely for a 'Guess the..' thread, this has to follow the "Guess the City" thread where you post an image of the inside of someone's shoe then disappear for a month?

Ok, let me think of a suitable hint on the way home. I'll post one in a couple of hours unless anyone wants a bit more time

Has anyone been in the right ballpark?

I think all of the answers so far have been in the same ballpark as each other, but none of them in the same ballpark as the answer

IIRC, Perú's biggest exports are copper, gold, oil and fish-related products (fertilizer, animal pellets).

Countries that don't have Starbucks yet

jk I know that's wrong

I really thought Dominican Republic would give me some big clues but it didn't.

If it’s like all countries with nickel deposits or something I’m going to hurl the computer through the window

Countries that have an even number of McDonald's restaurants

The DR and anvil's hint makes me think it's baseball or Olympic related.

If that is a reference to the ballpark reference, that isn't a hint. Dan Worsley introduced that reference and I was just replying in kind

Although neither answer is close, Josefa and StanM have been the closest with their suggestions

'incidences of certain businesses' would be quite a letdown

Is it countries Amazon don’t operate in?

No, because Germany is there

(Germany is purple fwiw)

Countries that perpetrate(d) genocide?

oh wait, you said green is what matters.

been trying to focus on the Ghana presence but getting nothing.

Google maps / satellite / streetview coverage? even though I've already disproved this myself.

I forgot about this after trying to think how to do a clue

'incidences of certain businesses' would be quite a letdown

It might be considered as a letdown

It really is a strange subset of countries. I can't decide if "green" means "has" or "has not". What could Western Sahara, Russia, Bonaire and Mauritius have in common? But if it is a "has not", then what the hell is going on in CAR and Chad and Niger, but not Ghana?

If there is a boat for those of us who are saying "I give up, tell us the answer already" I'm on that boat

Green means the country has it

*removes bookmark*

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LC_Waikiki

LOL ok I’m mad haha

I’ve never even heard of that thing

*re-removes bookmark, throw laptop out window*

With approx 54,000 employees worldwide, LC WAIKIKI directly employs nearly 0.000007% of the world's population!

Ok, my turn...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LC_Waikiki#/media/File:Lcw_magazalar_turkiye.svg

I'll come back in a few months if anyone needs any hints.

It is a great thread idea anvil tbqph

but but

what do the colours mean?

blue = yes, blue = no, grey = yes no

oh, that makes perfect sense - thank you :-)

https://thumbor.bigedition.com/heat-map/F9R3hm2lWqVzDdyoWqrseR-4AVQ=/800x504/filters:format(webp):quality(80)/granite-web-prod/80/67/80679f12a6eb4d3ebf279c64676a13fb.jpeg

ignore the markers i think, all about the heat map

Number of lights on at a certain point of the day.

no :)

it looks very city/ population related - could be so many things

guessing McDonald's restaurants again?

availability of bratwurst

Places Where Germans Go On Holiday

places introverts should avoid

Number of Volkswagen cars

Neanderthal DNA prevalence

People searching what "LC WAIKIKI" was last week.

Given the prominence of Germany and Central Europe I'm guessing something to do with alcohol, maybe beer consumption

Iceland is too purple for this to be human/population related

It's got to be in some way population related as most major conurbations are marked yellow

Is it coverage of 5G or something similar?

I'm trying to understand why the three parallel lines north east of Moscow - and the lines in Egypt

power lines?

Density of pubs/bars

Qatar and Dubai well known for their drinking culture.

Reading through this and finding out what the first map represented does just leave me wondering how arbitrary the shops' distribution were. If there is anything linking why they are set up where they are.
I guess the semi randomness was why the map was picked but presume there must be some order as to how a business is set up. History of trade or something. What directs aesthetic taste across such a broad area if the goods are at least semi uniform across the shops. Like business serving a recognised demand etc. &specific business instead of any alternative.

none correct so far

100% not-population related because India/China/Indonesia are pretty mid in the heatmap and that's where 40% of the planet's population lives.

Iceland feels key to this.

Florida, France, Spain, Turkey (and the Black Sea in general) all have a notable discrepancy between the coast and inland

Kinshasa (Congo) is 16 million people and hardly visible on that map, Reykjavik 122k

Iceland keeps me going back to power (solar/hydro/wind/geothermal) but if none of the above guesses were correct then maybe not, after all :-/

the Kuril islands (Japan <-> Kamchatka archipelago) are suspiciously visible too (only 20-odd thousand inhabitants, there can't be power lines or railways between them) - but what can it be then? mmmmmmmm

(archipelago->peninsula sorry)

It could be that people don't live there. Vacation destinations would tie in with the coastal differences in France, Florida, Turkey and the others

life expectancy?
or its direct opposite. levels of violence?

herring consumption

nope

it's something really basic

but i can give a better clue if you want one

concentration of german bank branches

no

the thing that sticks out to me is yellow in the southwestern us, some of those places are podunkville

Mercedes Benz ownership

nah

sewage piping

The pins got me thinking are they the most visited places in the world by tourists?

I think thats right, and would explain why the coastal strips are yellow in some places, much more so than adjacent interiors

the thing that sticks out to me is yellow in the southwestern us, some of those places are podunkville

Canyons?

getting close Dan

Well, I mean you almost nailed it but the specific is different

I found it by googling but I won't spoil

cool you can help with the replies, when i aint' here but dan almost got it so might not be long before a result.

Something to do with transport? Highest concentration of cars, busiest roads, something like that?

Airbnb density?

Immigrant proportion of population?

it's related to/a consequence of what Dan guessed

extensive underground cave networks?

canon cameras are sold

elevation above or below sea level since all the mountains have been levelled recently.

your second one is very close, combine with Dan's guess :-)

Something to do with where tourist photos have been geotagged?

I would call that 99% correct - I hope Ste agrees but I'll reveal...

it's a "touristiness" heatmap of the most photographed places based on photographs submitted to Panoramio. -> https://googlemapsmania.blogspot.com/2012/01/world-tourism-heatmaps.html

That explains some of the more remote pins. Niagara Falls, Pyramids etc

Looks like it, explains the canyons and the coastal strips too

yeah i'll take that

that was great! thanks :-)

https://i.ibb.co/yR7Rn5b/map.png

why is that so small? hmm

PAL regions

i'm wrong, japan wasn't PAL.

let's try another site then, this shouldn't be shrunk like the first attempt:

https://i.postimg.cc/hGKjB3gf/map.gif

My first guess (daylight saving time) was wrong but I'm also thinking it's tech related
Excludes some EU+EFTA members like Poland, Hungary etc
Inclusion of all those oversea territories is probably key

western europe, australia and new zealand, antarctica, japan, hong kong, a bunch of island nations.

japan and hong kong seem significant, but why antarctica?

the exclusion of the US and Canada seems important

that one green dot just north of venezuela appears to be bonaire (dutch). the other caribbean green dots are too crowded for me to make out, but they're *not* dutch

also curious that hong kong and macau are included

I was thinking signatories to an Antarctic treaty or something but that doesn't check out. Must be something regulatory though, given how the overseas territories of a country all line up.

I'm guessing some sort of environmental regulation.

Or banking regulations? It seems neither Isle of Man or the Channel Islands are green. Another oddity: Estonia and Latvia are green but Lithuania isn't.

None of the guesses are even close so far.

a clue: green means not

side of the road people drive on?

Do they have a side of the road in Antarctica?

Given Stan's hint, I'm guessing the green countries do not have a law discriminating against something that the other countries do. A bit flummoxed by Antarctica though.

Antarctica, remote Island Nations, Western Europe, Australia/NZ, that don't have something.

Most of these places are either isolated, tiny, or likely to have controls of some sort. So its some kind of bad flora/fauna/disease that they don't have

Lithuania and Poland the counter to that, if there are no border checks?

one of those guesses is right, cherry blossom!

No rabies?

CORRECT

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prevalence_of_rabies#Rabies-free_jurisdictions

:( sigh

(I got dogbit this past week and have to get the rabies shots starting tomorrow)

oh no! just do it though, if you get symptoms it's too late :(

Yeah I know. I thought we found the dog but it was the wrong dog. Bleahhhhh

maybe I was a little bit too fast with my hint, I'm too eager to help sometimes :-)

Ha, nice one, Lithuania.

Woooooo! Thank you cherry blossom & StanM, wouldn't have got there without those prompts but it totally clicked into place and I was reasonably confident in the rabies guess.

Our bats would like a word with the author of this map

Part of the reason I was confident is because a few years ago I had to look up whether British bats had rabies (injured bat in the house). The emergency vet just called it rabies, but it's a different strain of rabies virus ("European Bat Lyssavirus") and so the UK can maintain its rabies-free claim (based on what the site I'm looking at right now calls "classical rabies", nice nice).

I remember being told as a kid that France had rabies, but googling it, it seems it's been free since 2001

I think pet passports were introduced at about that time? That would make sense as part of an international push to eradicate it.

Interesting. My doctor described us as free of terrestrial rabies, which is a cool way of saying bats. Apparently no strain of the rabies virus is older than 1500 years. It's originally from bats and shifted to foxes, dogs, skunks etc, which means it's being again contained to the original hosts. And apparently the vaccine served as a base for one of the Covid vaccines, described as a "deactivated rabies-virus Covid vaccine". Which I guess is why you hire people for marketing after scientists do their job.

https://i.imgur.com/FQQnZWE.png

Light pollution is too obvious probably?

hmm. europe, japan, south korea all lit up. usa and mexico around the same. cuba and north korea completely dark. i'm thinking it's some cultural thing like soccer players.

honestly the only thing that makes sense is population density

adam t. is on the right track

Is it misleading that it looks like a map of might lights, then, if it's a cultural thing?

Dhaka isn't lit up, though it might be covered by the country label

The Canary Islands are lit up

South Korea, Java, New Zealand are a couple of locations that seem more lit up than expected imho

Mauritius & Réunion, east of Madagaskar, too

South Korea is a hotspot, is it something like mobile phone use?

now pondering what south korea and southeast england have in common

does south korea have Nando's? I know Mauritus has like the most per capita in the world (don't ask how I know)

afaik continental Europe is Nando-less?

I see that Coca-Cola is banned in Cuba and North Korea -- is it Coke sales?

on second thought, the US would be the brightest.

bicycle usage

I will accept that as correct. It is a heat map of cycling activities recorded online on the most popular global app.

(Russia and some other countries are not rendered/displayed due to political reasons)

wow i rule

you do

south korea getting biz-ay

completely and thoroughly

https://scontent.fslc3-2.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t39.30808-6/456063611_472399819112709_4974670646802839732_n.jpg?stp=cp6_dst-jpg&_nc_cat=105&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=833d8c&_nc_ohc=bKH6qvL8Y2cQ7kNvgGEZ5Tc&_nc_ht=scontent.fslc3-2.fna&oh=00_AYCMERwCj0YIzKHnqgcTpy0kj5GYos_WfxxbeeEy4SFQGA&oe=66CDD2B7

the world, imo

Episcopalian churches

Whatever it is they don't have them in Australia

this one's a mystery

Some of those dots aren't islands

Mainly thinking of the dots in the North Sea but also the one in the Adriatic

The other two that are puzzling are the dot in the Gulf of Mexico and the one in the Hudson Bay (I would guess Akimiski island but it might just be in the bay). Akimiski doesn't appear to have anything noteworthy attached to it

can people who do this please provide a hi-res of the maps? i honestly can't tell if those spots in the ocean are part of it or not.

so Fairbanks, Alaska pops up but Las Vegas doesn't...

No Sydney, São Paulo, or Melbourne either, and with the islands and also not islands I don't think this is anything to do with cities or populated areas

The not islands like in the North Sea have to be the biggest clue.

i'm trying to wrap my head around why the EU and most of the familiar metro areas are solid and yet there's a spot between canada and greenland.

Its something that can be true on both land and sea and it can't be something physical because its just sea, so they have to be where incidents occurred. And at sea I can only think of ships sinking, but ships don't sink on land. But ships sink when shot at which means these have to be war incidents which also occur on land

though it could also be planes not just ships. Its either battles or incidents where people died

Which would explain overrepresentation of Falklands and underrepresentation of Melbourne

wtf that the only part of Australia represented is the Tiwi Islands

Or could that be Darwin? Which would fit in with the battle places theory as the Japanese attacked Darwin during WW2. But if it's battles, why isn't Vietnam more heavily dotted ..

still standing buildings built before 1800

if it's battles then it's got a different source than this one because there's no dot in the Davis Strait (between Canada or Greenland) - https://www.siliconrepublic.com/life/battles-of-the-planet-interactive-map-shows-every-known-battlefield-on-earth

but it doesn't feel THAT different

Akimiski Island / James Bay is a problem for the battles theory advocates but maybe it depends how far back you go and who recorded what. I can't think of anything else that covers the North Sea though where there are no islands!

wtf that the only part of Australia represented is the Tiwi Islands

I see Perth too?

it's battles from 2500 bc via wikipedia. not very comprehensive obviously lol.

huh, i wonder what's the battle in west australia

Google suggests the pinjarra massacre

i'm surprised there were that many sea battles back then

Battles made sense for North Sea and Falklands but still stumped on Akimiski!

we fight a lot don't we

Aussies seem pretty relaxed (about recording their battles)

But is it a lot? Its a 4500 time period on a plant of billions and no indication of how large an incident has to be to count

The map comes from this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HK5OsDWYJmQ

https://i.imgur.com/qi1ui0P.png

what savages still use the mercator projection

white people of the world

Whatever this is, it seems highly correlated with national wealth.

except for the Middle East...

incidence of dementia

what is that little dark spot in the Gulf - Djibouti?

Average life expectancy?

Average life expectancy?

Reverse google image searched it, good luck getting this one guys.

Greenland complete contrast to the adjacent lands, hmmmm

(this time Greenland and Svalbard aren't part of Denmark and Norway, respectively - they sometimes are) - and Crete and Mallorca are probably too small to see (or the lines around them are too thick)

Iran, Irak, Afghanistan, Libya, Djibouti, North Korea are brighter than their surrounding countries - is it something political? (but then Greenland and Svalbard again - and those two shouldn't be life expectancy either I think)

Pakistan, Syria, Sudan, also - political? Terrorism?