Quick note to mention this:

Worldmapper

This site has a ton of world maps with the sizes of the countries adjusted to show various attributes proportionally. The map above is the one for world population. I first found this when I was directed to the site of Mark Newman, a physicist at the University of Michigan. He did maps of the U.S. like this showing the results of the presidential election, which are really interesting too. He also wrote the software that is used to generate these maps, which is interesting to look into if you’re a geek like me.

I recommend looking at the malaria deaths, rabies deaths, and alcohol and cigarettes exports for how interestingly imbalanced they are.