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Tuesday map: Put the oil spill wherever you want

A few weeks ago, Jon Stewart poked some fun at the media’s need to compare the Gulf oil slick to other similarly sized areas — “the size of Puerto Rico,” “the size of Delaware and Rhode Island combined!”  The new site “If It Was My Home,” uses a clever Google Maps mashup that lets you ...

By , a former associate editor at Foreign Policy.
568202_louisiana2.jpg
568202_louisiana2.jpg

A few weeks ago, Jon Stewart poked some fun at the media's need to compare the Gulf oil slick to other similarly sized areas -- "the size of Puerto Rico," "the size of Delaware and Rhode Island combined!" 

A few weeks ago, Jon Stewart poked some fun at the media’s need to compare the Gulf oil slick to other similarly sized areas — “the size of Puerto Rico,” “the size of Delaware and Rhode Island combined!” 

The new site “If It Was My Home,” uses a clever Google Maps mashup that lets you generate your own comparison by putting the oil spill wherever you want. The site’s authors say they update the size of the splotch every day with new data from NOAA. As you can see from this map of the area where I live, the spill’s grown quite a bit since the Daily Show clip: 

For you Europeans, here it is compared to Switzerland:

Or South Korea:

 

It wasn’t also awful and terrifying it would be a pretty fun game.

Hat tip: Strange Maps

Joshua Keating was an associate editor at Foreign Policy. Twitter: @joshuakeating

Tag: Oil Production

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