Three interesting maps of Eritrea and Africa

Foreign Policy recently translated the most common Chinese-language Baidu query associated with each African country onto a map (see map below).

Despite having presence in every African country, the Chinese seem to hold similar stereotypes of Africa as Western countries do.

According to the data, the Chinese see Eritrea as a country of "beautiful women"; Ethiopia as an "impoverished" country; while war-torn Somalia is seen as "Chaotic".

West African countries didn't fair any better. The Chinese see the Gambia as "Awesome People" or "niubi", which is a sarcastic way of saying something is the opposite in a far more vulgar way. Sierra Leone is seen as a country of Ebola, Liberia is seen as a country of many wars, while Cameroon was labeled as "Africa's lions" after their national football team's nickname.

The next map is based on Google searches on what African countries want the most. Not surprisingly, Africans are most concerned with daily necessities such as food and livestock

For Eritrea, the most searched query is wanting to buy a house. This shouldn't come as a surprise since there is a massive demand for housing in Eritrea that is not being met by the state-owned construction firms.

Regionally, Eritrea is the odd man out as all of its neighbor's top Google queries deal with purchasing domestic animals such as cows and goats.

Perhaps the most surprising query comes from Mauritania, which has the cost of slaves as its top search query. This is likely due to the fact that slavery still goes on in the country, even though it's officially banned.

The final map below deals with Eritrea's true size. Often times, in a bid to dismiss Eritrea as insignificant, media outlets depict Eritrea as "tiny" or "small", even by medias based in countries and territories that are smaller than Eritrea. The truth is, when compared to all the countries of the world, Eritrea is above average in land size.

Head over to this site to compare Eritrea's & Africa's true size with the rest of the world.

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