The world is huge – and sometimes is hard to make sense of it all.

As visual creatures, our brain understands the world primarily through our sense of sight.

So it makes sense that to truly understand how the world works, it helps to have a map!

We’ve done our research and rounded up some of our favorite travel graphics that explain the world in one way or another.

Let’s begin!

1. The World Population – In Context

Guess what? The world population density is not uniform.

There are some massive areas of land – Mongolia, Russia, Alaska, with very little humans.

There’s also tiny plots – like Hong Kong – with massive population density.

So in order to really get a sense for how bit the countries around the world are, this cartogram map visually shows us the relation.

2. Top Roadtrips Across the USA

The classic American roadtrip is a right of passage for those that can make it.

The thing is, there’s no one established roadtrip, but rather many routes.

The classical roadtrip starts somewhere near NYC and ends in LA or San Francisco (like the Loneliest Road), but as we can see above there’s many ways to go. Thanks to RaodTripUSA for this one.

3. Surprising Literal Names of American Cities

Ever stop to think about how that city got its name? What language it was from? Asides from the obvious Spanish names (Los Angeles), we hadn’t given it much though.

This graphic breaks down some of the more surprising names in the US – from Florida to Alaska.

Some of our favorites are Chicago (stinky onion), Boca Raton (mouse mouth), and of course Austin (majestic).

4. The Literal Translation of Country Names

Taking it even broader, this graphic breaks down the literal translations of countries around the world.

Some of them are downright strange – Brazil is “red like an ember”, while others are more practical – Australia is “southern land”.

It’s a real hoot to peruse through and try to find the strangest ones out there!

5. Friendliness of Countries to Foreigners

This one is probably my favorite. We have preconceived notions on how other countries treat foreigners, but this one really puts some data behind it.

Digging into it, we see some correlation between those smaller countries relying on tourist dollars with friendliness to foreigners. Also Canada is just nice overall.

This map is no longer live on Washington Post, but dig into some of the comments on Reddit for discussion.