The Medal Map

The map above depicts the world based on the weighted total of medals won at the 2012 London Olympics, created by the JoongAng Ilbo and Seoul National University’s department of geography. On a standard world map, South Korea ranks 109th in land mass. In the “medal map,” the country is one-third the size of China with 13 gold, eight silver and seven bronze medals. Korea finished fifth in the gold medal count after the United States, China, the United Kingdom and Russia. North Korea finished 20th with four gold and two bronze medals. Russia’s territory shrinks substantially in the map above while Canada is nearly nonexistent. Canada finished 36th with one gold, five silver and 12 bronze medals. India failed to bring home any gold medals, making the world’s largest democracy close to the size of Cuba. A large portion of Africa vanishes in the Olympic world map. [JoongAng Ilbo]