The blog Strange Maps presents a series of fascinating maps illustrating a wide variety of political and socio-economic ideas, both realities and possibilities. Their latest map shows each of the states in the USA renamed for a nation which has a similar annual GDP (gross domestic product, for those who’ve forgotten their civics or economics classes.) Washington, it turns out, has a GDP similar to that of Turkey. Our neighboring states are Israel (Oregon) and Ukraine (Idaho), with Tunisia (Montana), Ireland (Nevada) and France (California) not too far away.

I’ve only ever met two people from Turkey and I don’t know that much about it (although I did just finish reading a novel set there) so I decided to look up some information on it. According to the CIA, Turkey has a population of 71,158,647 (by comparison, Washington’s population is about 6,395,798) and has an economy driven by modern industry and commerce in addition to a traditional agriculture sector. Sound familiar? They also have a real big problem with heroin, being a key transit route from Southwest Asia to Western Europe, and a highly developed coffehouse culture.