Populational Density Maps, by WorldMapper

The Worldmapper cartograms try to create a different view on the social image of our planet by putting a specific variable of interest in the centre of the depiction. Although these cartograms try to preserve the unique shape, this might cause difficultiesinterpreting these depictions in more detail. Statements on the conditions of the topic under scrutiny of each country can only be made on a global scale but not on a regional or national level. The advantage of preserving the shapes can thus turn into a disadvantage.

Grid-based Cartograms
The creation of grid-based cartograms can be one solution to this problem. Instead of a single value per country a much higher number of values based on an equally distributed grid is taken as a basis for the cartogram creation. The resulting cartograms thus give a much more detailed impression of the interal variation of the specific topic even within countries or regions. More details on the methodological background can be found in the paper from the GISRUK 2009 conference (pdf) and in the proceedings from the 2009 ESRI User Conference.