Geography of Summer Olympics Medal Winners

In a few weeks London will host the 2012 Summer Olympics.  This event will reinforce Europe's hold on being the primary host of the Summer Olympic games.

Like my 2010 post about the geography of Winter Olympics medal winners, I decided to take a look at Summer Olympics medal winners.  The trends are analyzed below the winners table:

	Gold	Silver	Bronze	Total
USA	929	729	638	2296
USSR	395	319	296	1010
UK	207	255	253	715
Germany	191	217	240	648
France	191	212	233	636
Italy	191	157	174	522
Sweden	142	160	173	475
Hungary	159	141	159	459
Australia	131	137	164	432
East Germany	153	129	127	409
PR China	163	117	105	385
Japan	123	112	126	361
Russia	108	97	112	317
Finland	101	83	115	299
Romania	86	89	117	292
Poland	62	80	119	261
Canada	58	94	108	260
Netherlands	71	79	96	246
West Germany	56	74	98	228
South Korea	68	74	73	215
Bulgaria	51	84	77	212
Cuba	67	64	63	194
Switzerland	45	70	66	181
Denmark	41	63	66	170
Norway	54	48	42	144
Czechoslovakia	49	49	45	143
Belgium	37	51	51	139
Spain	34	49	30	113
Unified Team	45	38	29	112
Greece	30	42	36	108
Ukraine	28	22	46	96
Brazil	20	25	46	91
Yugoslavia	28	31	31	90
New Zealand	36	15	35	86
Austria	18	33	35	86
Turkey	37	23	22	82
Kenya	22	29	24	75
South Africa	20	24	26	70
Argentina	17	23	26	66
Belarus	10	19	35	64
Jamaica	13	25	17	55
Mexico	12	18	25	55
Iran	11	15	22	48
North Korea	10	12	19	41
Kazakhstan	9	16	14	39
Ethiopia	18	6	14	38
Czech Republic	10	12	11	33
Estonia	9	8	14	31
Indonesia	6	9	10	25
Egypt	7	7	10	24
Nigeria	2	9	12	23
Ireland	8	7	8	23
Portugal	4	7	11	22
Morocco	6	5	10	21
Thailand	7	4	10	21
India	9	4	7	20
Slovakia	7	8	5	20
Mongolia	2	7	10	19
Republic of China	2	6	11	19
Georgia	5	2	11	18
Uzbekistan	4	5	8	17
Croatia	3	6	8	17
Latvia	2	11	4	17
Azerbaijan	4	3	9	16
Lithuania	4	4	8	16
Slovenia	3	5	7	15
Algeria	4	2	8	14
Trinidad and Tobago	1	5	8	14
Chile	2	7	4	13
Australasia	3	4	5	12
Colombia	1	3	7	11
Venezuela	1	2	8	11
Bahamas	4	2	4	10
Uruguay	2	2	6	10
Pakistan	3	3	4	10
Armenia	1	1	7	9
Philippines	0	2	7	9
Russian Empire	1	4	3	8
Zimbabwe	3	4	1	8
Tunisia	2	2	3	7
Israel	1	1	5	7
Uganda	1	3	2	6
Puerto Rico	0	1	5	6
Moldova	0	2	3	5
Cameroon	3	1	1	5
Iceland	0	2	2	4
Costa Rica	1	1	2	4
Peru	1	3	0	4
Dominican Rep	2	1	1	4
Malaysia	0	2	2	4
Bohemia (AH Empire)	0	1	3	4
Nambia	0	4	0	4
Lebanon	0	2	2	4
Ghana	0	1	3	4
Serbia	0	1	2	3
Panama	1	0	2	3
Syria	1	1	1	3
Krygyzstan	0	1	2	3
Haiti	0	1	1	2
British West Indies	0	0	2	2
Serbia and Montenegro	0	2	0	2
Ecuador	1	1	0	2
Suriname	1	0	1	2
Mozambique	1	0	1	2
Luxembourg	1	1	0	2
Hong Kong	1	1	0	2
Zambia	0	1	1	2
Vietnam	0	2	0	2
Sri Lanka	0	2	0	2
Singapore	0	2	0	2
Tanzania	0	2	0	2
Qatar	0	0	2	2
Tajikistan	0	1	1	2
Eritrea	0	0	1	1
Guyana	0	0	1	1
Iraq	0	0	1	1
Kuwait	0	0	1	1
Nigeria	0	0	1	1
Netherlands Antilles	0	1	0	1
UAE	1	0	0	1
Djibouti	0	0	1	1
Ivory Coast	0	1	0	1
Bermuda	0	0	1	1
Barbados	0	0	1	1
US Virgin Islands	0	1	0	1
Sudan	0	1	0	1
Togo	0	0	1	1
Burundi	1	0	0	1
Paraguay	0	1	0	1
Afghanistan	0	0	1	1
Macedonia	0	0	1	1
Senegal	0	1	0	1

Like the Winter Olympics, the Summer Olympic results are hardly cosmopolitan.

• Despite only having ten percent of the world's population, Europe has won 60% of all medals.  This is mostly due to European sports being played at the Olympics.
• The United States and Canada have won 18% of all medals.  This is despite the United States' individual dominance of the game.
• Asia, having 55% of the world's total population, has won only 9.6% of all medals.
• Africa has only received two percent of all medals.
• Middle, South, and Caribbean Americas have won 2.5% of all medals.

However, things are changing.  Much of Europe's wins came during the Cold War-era which saw heavy use of steroids from countries like Poland, Romania, and Hungary.  These countries are lucky if they do well now as the Olympics have clamped down on steroid use.  Meanwhile, the People's Republic of China has only competed in the last eight Olympics but has managed to become the eleventh best overall, and will soon surpass the dead East Germany for medals.  Asia will grow along with the People's Republic in the medal count as these countries finally master European-made games.  Africa is also growing its medal count with the increasing number track and field games.

Due to the ability of warm weather around the world and the proliferation of summer sports, the Summer Olympics will become the world's gaming event as the Winter Olympics, with the presence of many mountain sports, will remain a European stronghold.

Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's Fun Hunt Map of Canada

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) is attempting to solve the boredom of summer vacation (after a while doing nothing loses its appeal) with geography.  The Fun Hunt map features sights and activities around Canada users can see or do.  Users are also encouraged to register and document fun activities on the map as well.

How CBC portrays Canada to kids. From the CBC

Interesting as well is the base map.  Provinces from British Columbia to Ontario are shown being free of snow while the Yukon, Northwest Territories, and Nunavut are encased in permanent snow.  Meanwhile, the northern half of Quebec and Newfoundland are also in snow.  Using the map (below) from the Canadian Cryospheric Information Network it seems the map does not reflect reality but instead is another Canadian stereotypes map.

The snow map shows the difference between Canada's own stereotypes and reality.  From CCIN

Google's World Wonders Project

Reader Alex Ross has brought Google's World Wonder Project to my attention.  The project is a joint venture between Google, UNESCO, the World Monuments Fund, and Cyark to allow virtual, educational travels to world heritage sites.  The website combines Google Street Views along with graphic models, educational text, photos, and videos to provide a multimedia vacation.

One of my favorite locations on Earth, Guanajuato is featured as one of the world's wonders.  While many of these places are on my "really want to see list" I have only been able to visit two wonders so far.  Until I actually travel to these places, Google's World Wonder Project will have to quench my thirst for travel.

The World's Most Average Person

Is a 28 year old Han Chinese man who has a cellphone but not bank account, according to this fantastic video from National Geographic.



The video a great job showing the wide ranges of what makes "average" around the world.  This is a fun little movie which quick demonstrates how fascinatingly diverse our world is.

Happy Fourth of July - Remember to Fight for All Our Freedoms

Remember to thank all those who help keep us free.

America has not been perfect with its freedoms.  It took time to begin to undo the wrongs towards Indians, Blacks, and religious minorities among others.  However, we continue to better ourselves.

Religious liberty has long been a troubled one for Americans.  The country's first Thanksgiving is tied into a Spanish expedition to crush French Protestants in Florida.  Plymouth Colony was a religious fundamentalist state of anti-Catholic, anti-Anglican dimensions.  Maryland was founded by Catholics for religious freedom purposes but was overrun by Puritans who fled the establishment of the Anglican church in Virgina.  These Puritans overturned the freedom laws in Maryland and made the colony officially anti-Catholic.  Mormons had shoot on sight orders against them in Missouri.  And Hutterites who fled to Canada to avoid being forced to fight in World War I had their cemeteries desecrated by farmers in South Dakota.

However, like the freedom not to be a slave or freedom to live where one wants, there are warriors for religious freedom as well.  We thank these men and women and pray for them.

NOAA on Derecho Storms

The news has been full of stories about the "Derecho" storm which slammed into the Eastern United States bringing death and destruction from Ohio to Delaware and Pennsylvania to South Carolina.  I was even caught in the initial blast of the storm due to poor analytic skills (note to self:  just because one measures lightning being three miles/five kilometers away does not mean the rain and wind are that far away as well).

Sadly, I never took a course in meteorology so I would be a horrible blogger if I tried to describe the science of a derecho.  However, NOAA has an excellent internet resource on the storms full of useful information including

A derecho (pronounced similar to "deh-REY-cho" in English, or pronounced phonetically as "") is a widespread, long-lived wind storm that is associated with a band of rapidly moving showers or thunderstorms. Although a derecho can produce destruction similar to that of tornadoes, the damage typically is directed in one direction along a relatively straight swath. As a result, the term "straight-line wind damage" sometimes is used to describe derecho damage. By definition, if the wind damage swath extends more than 240 miles (about 400 kilometers) and includes wind gusts of at least 58 mph (93 km/h) or greater along most of its length, then the event may be classified as a derecho.

A derecho may be associated with a single bow echo or with multiple bows. Bow echoes themselves may consist of an individual storm, or may be comprised of a series of adjacent storms (i.e., a "squall line" or "quasi-linear convective system") that together take on a larger scale bow shape. Bow echoes may dissipate and subsequently redevelop during the course of given derecho. Derecho winds occasionally are enhanced when a rotating band of storms called a "bookend vortex" develops on the poleward side of the bow echo storm system. Derecho winds also may be augmented on a smaller scale by the presence of embedded supercells in the derecho-producing convective system.

Derecho winds are the product of what meteorologists call "downbursts." A downburst is a concentrated area of strong wind produced by a convective downdraft. Downbursts have horizontal dimensions of about 4 to 6 miles (8 to 10 kilometers), and may last for several minutes. The convective downdrafts that comprise downbursts form when air is cooled by the evaporation, melting, and/or sublimation of precipitation in thunderstorms or other convective clouds. Because the chilled air is denser than its surroundings, it becomes negatively buoyant and accelerates down toward the ground. Derechos occur when meteorological conditions support the repeated production of downbursts within the same general area. The "downburst clusters" that arise in such situations may attain overall lengths of up to 50 or 60 miles (80 to 100 kilometers), and persist for several tens of minutes. Within individual downbursts there sometimes exist smaller pockets of intense winds called "microbursts." Microbursts occur on scales (approximately 2 1/2 miles or 4 km) that are very hazardous to aircraft; several notable airline mishaps in recent decades resulted from unfortunate encounters with microbursts. Still smaller areas of extreme wind within microbursts are called "burst swaths." Burst swaths range from about 50 to 150 yards (45 to 140 meters) in length. The damage they produce may resemble that caused by a tornado.

Be sure to read more about these storms on the website!   And remember, NOAA is a great resource for all weather related phenomenon.

July 2012 Monthly Travel Photo: Little Round Top from the Valley of Death

An unique look at how geography impacted my family tree and why a good genealogist would study geography.

A see of blue uniforms, including my ancestor, swarmed down Little Round Top into the Valley of Death.  They were easy pickings.  Photo by Catholicgauze, directed and inspired by Catholicgauzette

On this Gettysburg hillside in the evening of July 2, 1862, one of my ancestors, marked his 366th day in the Union army by leading his men down from Little Round Top into the "Valley of Death".  Their mission was to clean out areas known as the Wheatfield and Devil's Den which were taken by Confederates earlier that day.  The hope was they could push the Confederates away from the critcal hills known as Big and Little Round Top.  These hills served as the southern flank of the Union line and protected the army's connection to Washington.

The view from Little Round Top down into the Valley of Death from the 17th United States Infantry's position.  This is what my ancestor saw (along with smoke and an army of Confederate soldiers).  Photo by Catholicgauze

Within 15 minutes, 150 of the 260 men of the 17th United States Infantry were dead or wounded.  According to a family historian, my ancestor, Edward, was shot in the lung and was taken to a farm house half of a mile away which served as a hospital.  The hospital was already full of wounded from fighter earlier on the second day.  He fought for his life through July 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, and 7th.  He died on the eighth, five days after the end of the battle.


View Edward at Gettysburgh in a larger map


View Edward at Gettysburgh in a larger map

At the end of the second day of the battle Confederate General Robert E Lee decided to focus all his attention on breaking the center of the Union line, away from the Round Tops.  The fighting which killed Edward proved to be a sideshow, perhaps even unnecessary.