Cartograms

What is this funny looking map of the world? It's a cartogram depicting the proportional Gross National Products of countries by enlarging or shrinking them in relation to each other.

I discovered these fantastic maps while googling information about tonight's election. The first site I found showed US map cartograms attempting to give a more accurate portrayal of the Dem/GOP distribution in the 2004 elections.

Also linked from that page was this page of world map cartograms on which is included the image above as well as several others, including population, energy consumption, and people living with HIV/AIDS.