I found this quite interesting, but i have a facination with maps: worldmapper.
Basically they inflate/deflate the land area of the nations to represent various statistics. The following shows patents filed in a recent year. The purple blob on the right? …Japan.
This looks quite disturbing to me. Organic, and scary. I get little shivers and my face tightens when I look at it. It makes me feel sick.
I am not joking. (Phobia?)
Still, that is a very neat mapping concept.