by A. Rupa Datta, with 2007 cartogram by Ned English and Katie Dekker

On October 24, 1945, the United Nations officially came into existence when 50 countries, hoping that cooperation could replace war as an instrument of foreign policy, ratified the UN charter. Poland was added shortly thereafter as the 51st member. Observing the 62nd anniversary of that sunrise, we update an image created by a prior generation of researchers at the National Opinion Research Center and first published on May 23, 1943 in the pages of the New York Times. The image shows what the world would look like if the areas of the world were proportional to their population. In the midst of World War II and at the creation of the United Nations, that "map" differentiated between United Nations, the Axis and non-belligerent countries.

                    Cartogram of World Area Scaled to Population

                    Data Source: CIA Fact Book                © NORC 2007

Today’s consumers of global positioning system technology will recognize this format as a cartogram – a map-like diagram that depicts some characteristic of a geographical area instead of showing the area’s actual spatial boundaries. Using data from the 2006 CIA Fact Book, we present the world today, with U.N. member states represented in proportion to their populations. A few observations about our globe in these first 60-some years of the life of the U.N.:

The number of United Nations member states has increased fourfold to almost 200 today, with only a few places like French Guiana, Western Sahara, and Greenland (a territory of Norway that are not members. Of the original 51 members in 1945, 49 remain. Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia no longer exist as independent nations, and the former Soviet Union has been replaced in the U.N. by Russia and 14 other independent states.

More important is the increase in the number of independent states due in great part to the end of colonial rule, notably in Africa, Asia, and Oceana. For example, the area labeled "India" in 1943 includes three of today’s most populous nations: Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan.

The major forces of population change - births, deaths, and migration - have played out very differently over the years and across the globe. The contrast is starkly seen between Europe and Africa. In the 1940s, approximately 1 in 5 people on the planet lived in Europe; today Europe accounts for just 1 in 10 people. Europe has lost population share, Africa has gained. About 1 in 12 individuals in 1940 lived in Africa; in 2006, 1 in 7 live there. Differences in birth rates are a major source of this change in relative population.

And some things hardly change: Asia, North America, and Oceania have about the same share of global population as they did 60-some years ago.

Because the cartograms illustrate proportionality, they hide perhaps the biggest change in global population since the birth of the U.N. The U.S. Census Bureau estimates that the overall world population has almost tripled, to over 6.6 billion today.