The Atlantic ran a (flimsy) piece on the map, and what it says about America's national psyche. It also made reference to other maps that had been done in the past, using the same format for Europe, for example. I checked them out and they were a bit dated in terms of their results, so for your entertainment and delectation, I repeated the exercise, using two different formats:
1) To match the map above, "why is [insert country] so...?"
and then
2) "[Insert country] is..."
The results of the interrogative were, to be honest, pretty predictable: one of poor, rich, expensive or happy covers pretty much more than half the continent; of the remainder Ireland is green, Britain is great, Russia is big and France is gay. No surprises there. That people want to know why Turkey is dry is hardly shocking either (top tip: deep fry it to keep in the moisture), though Lithuania and Greece threw up a couple of curve balls.
