Happiness, pirates, car thefts and robots: what is your country best at?

(David McCandless 2009)

A new map designed by informationisbeautiful.net shows the number one thing a country is best at.

From horse meat to public debt to beer drinkers, "every country is best at something" explains informationisbeautiful.com, a site dedicated to visualizing ideas, issues, knowledge and data.

The map provides a global outlook of "International Number Ones." It's no shock to learn that Colombia is famous for cocaine, Japan for robots, America for serial killers and Panama for shipping traffic, but you might be slightly more surprised to find out that Thailand is number one for condoms, Malaysia for rubber gloves, Canada for fruit juice drinkers, Georgia for library books, Pakistan for footballs, China for pigs and Mali for fertility.

If you are someone who likes to have data and information presented visually, have a look at some of the great software programs and blogs listed on the webdesignerdepot.com's selection of "50 Great Examples of Data Visualization." The guide includes some great resources for music (Liveplasma, Tuneglue, MusicMap, Fidg't); social media (Looks Del.icio.us, Arc, Stack, Swarm, TwittEarth); internet (Mapping the Blogosphere, Twingly Screensaver, Web Trend Map 4); and other cool mapping tools like Visualizing Information Flow in Science, Micro Fashion Network: Color, and We Feel Fine.

You can have a closer look at the map and find out what your country is best at by visiting: http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/because-every-country-is-the-best-at-something/#

Web Design Depot's 50 Great Examples of Data Visualization: http://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2009/06/50-great-examples-of-data-visualization/