Maps can bea remarkably powerful tool for understanding the world and how it works, but they show only what you ask them to. So when we saw a post sweeping the Web titled"40 maps they didn't teach you in school," one of which happens to be a WorldViews original, I thought we might be able to contribute our own collection. Some of these are pretty nerdy, but I think they're no less fascinating and easily understandable. A majority are original to this blog (see our full maps coverage here), with others from a variety of sources. I've included a link for further reading on close to every one.

对于理解世界以及世界是如何运作的这两方面来说，地图是一种极其强大的工具。但是地图只能够解释你提出的问题。因此，当我们在看到一个名为“他们没有在学校里教给你的40张地图”的帖子席卷网络，其中之一恰巧源于WorldViews（译注：即此文章专栏）时，我觉得我们或许可以做一个我们自己的版本。有一些地图可能过于书呆子气，但是我觉得它们的迷人程度并没有少一点儿，也很易于理解。其中大部分都是这个博客原创的，另一些来源各异。我已经附上了链接，便于各位做扩展阅读。（译注：请注意很多原文处都附带链接。感兴趣请到原文处寻找。译文处无链接。）

1. A political map of the world, circa 200 A.D.

1.世界政治地图，约公元200年

What's more amazing: how much things have changed over the last 1,800 years, a major chunk of the civilizational history of humanity, or how many of this map's divisions are still with us today?

哪一个更令人惊讶：在近1800年以来，人类文明史上有多少事情已经沧海桑田；还是有多少地图上的不同今天仍是如此？（译注：求map's divisions的准确理解）