Guess the Map III: The Map Lover's Paradise

It's not Democracy.
It's not Nuclear Energy.

That were my two first thoughts. But it does have something to do with Industry, as USA and Germany are the top nations. I cannot see Chemicals as well, as imo Switzerland would be too bright for that (Novartis, Roche), but of course, I'm not sure where those two have their production, could be Sri Lanka... ;-)

EDIT: Funny, looking at the map based on USA/Germany, I had an idea for another map and then tried looking for it on google and the map was the first one to come up, though it's something slightly different than I would have guessed. Of course I'm now not gonna say it, but it is a good map, LAnkou, chapeau!

 

someone found it in less than 3 post again but thanks mitsho for not spoiling the map too soon.

 

Notice that Antarctica is darker than most of the African countries... So it's probably not something that has to do with human influence.

 

Ozone layer depletion?

 

Well, three posts and a edit! ;-)

But I guess that's only good manners as I did only find it by accident, which is not really the point of the game. The "social guessing" is the better part (apart from the widening of my general knowledge)

 

Actually I assumed that was just a mistake. I couldn't make sense out of it.

 

Average amount of ships in port at any given time?

 

antarctica is effectively darker than most african countries and that's not a mistake...

WIM, how do you explain central asia countries?

 

Alpine mountaineering associations?

 

Lakes and rivers.

 

Penguin/snow ratio?

 

There's a strong correlation between the countries in dark and the number of wikipedia users. Number of edits from each country? Er, no that makes no sense with Antarctica. Number of articles about each country / location?

 

Brasil would be much darker if it was related to Wikipedia.

 

Research done? i.e. money spent in the country on scientific research?

 

bingo...number of geotagged wikipedian article per country

please note there is much more article about antarctica than most african countries and on a side note, there are more Wikipedia articles written about the fictional places of Middle Earth and Discworld than about many countries in Africa, the Americas and Asia

 

That's rather depressing

I'll get a map together.

 

Who'd have thought? :/

 

South Korea and Sweden are darkest. It's something to do with technology. Cellphone use or ownership?