Lonely Planet - The Bigger Book of Everything (Lonely Planet)

To Erin, with love to the
best travel partner anyone could
possibly wish for.

UNDERSTANDING
THE WORLD

Foreword

Dear Reader, please be aware that even though this is its second
edition, The Book of Everything still doesnt have everything in it. (For that,
youll have to wait until, um, perhaps the 20th edition?)

So theres nothing about a whole lot of stuff that you might like to know
before or during your travel exploits. No mention of how to build an igloo in
Alaska; nothing about how to pack for a trip to Anjalankoski*; not a word on
Montezumas Revenge in Mexico. Oh well, we worked hard to make what is
here as relevant and interesting as we could.

This appears on every page. If you are reading with a dirty left thumb, make
sure your thumb goes right here. That way, you wont mess up the pages.

Although the book was written and drawn with a light-hearted touch, several
pages, especially some in the health and safety section, deal with serious
subjects for travellers. Im a lifelong designer of infographicsexplaining
thingsbut am by no means an expert in medical or security matters, so the
health and safety pages were some of the most demanding for me to produce.
They required a level of research and attention to detail that was different
to, for instance, gathering facts about the worlds longest rivers and highest
mountains, or describing how snow forms, or showing the proper way to
wear the kilt. So while Im not sure that I would volunteer to deliver a baby
in an emergency, nor dare to perform a tracheotomy, its all in here.

It seemed fitting for a book thats a collection of infographics to do a graphic
about how a typical two-page spread was made. Here it is

* Its in Finland. Look it up.

UNDERSTANDING
THE WORLD

A different world

Whats a travel book without a map of the world? And why
do we always look at it the same way? This view might help you
to see Countries in a new light. (Then again it might just be totally annoying.)

Its great
to be at the top
for a change!

Is it really
upside down?

Our custom of orienting
maps with north at the
top is arbitrary. The
Greek cartographer and
astronomer Ptolemy
drew his maps that way
around the year AD 150,
and most mapmakers
have followed his
example.

Some people think that
north-oriented maps
have an implicit bias
toward the northern
hemisphere, and many
classic (and still used)
world projections do
favour the northern
hemisphere. This is
because at the time
these maps were made,
most of the developed
world was in the north
and more room was
needed to show the
detail in this area.

When the famous
photo of Earth taken
from space (aboard
Apollo 17) was first
published, in 1972, it
showed the South Pole
like this:

Thats
Africa,
or rather,
Africa.

Publications quickly
turned the image round
to fit the established
convention.

Around the world: the equator

The first person to sail around the globe was
Juan Sebastin del Cano, who took credit after
his captain, Ferdinand Magellan, was killed
en route. The voyage lasted almost 3
years, from 1519 to 1522.

In 1961, Russian
cosmonaut Yuri
Gagarin was the first
to make the trip into
space. It took 1 hour
and 48 minutes.

EQUATOR

Galpagos Islands

Ecuador

Colombia

Brazil

You can
set foot on only
about 8000km
(5000 miles; 20%)
of the Equators length,
in the places shown in red.

The Pacific Ocean alone
accounts for 18,000km
(about 11,000 miles)
of water around the
middle of the
Earth.

Malaku (Moluccas)

Sulawesi (Celebes)

Borneo

Sumatra

Maldives

Equator days are the
same year round: 12
hours of daylight, 12 of
darkness. The sun rises
around 6am and sets
around 6pm.

Global climate
change has special
urgency in the
Maldives. If the sea
level continues rising
at current rates, most
of the 1200 islands
and atolls will be
under water by 2100,
according to the UN.

Time it
takes light
to travel
around the
equator:
0.13
seconds.

Time it
would take
a baseball
travelling at
160km/h
(100mph):
10 days.

Time it
would take
running
nonstop at
10.5km/h
(6.5mph):
160 days.

40,075km (24,902 miles)

Why its so
darn hot

Its hot almost
everywhere on the
equator because
the suns rays hit
the earth there
straight on, heating
the ground and the
air above it.
Elsewhere, the rays
hit the atmosphere
at an angle
because the earth
is curved. This
dissipates some of
the suns energy.

Arctic

Suns rays are almost horizontal

Equator

Suns rays are
directly overhead

Elsewhere

Suns rays are
angled

Antarctic

Suns rays are almost horizontal

Of course, the sun
isnt as close to us
as this. (But it
sometimes feels like
it on the equator.)