A map of the world can look completely different when countries are resized according to what they produce rather than the amount of land they occupy. One striking example is a 2016 sunflower-production cartogram, where national territories are scaled according to the amount of sunflower harvested.

Instead of showing geographical area, the map gives visual weight to agricultural output. The result is a dramatically reshaped world in which Ukraine and Russia become the dominant territories, reflecting their enormous contribution to global sunflower-seed production.

Ukraine and Russia Dominate Sunflower Production

According to the data behind the Worldmapper sunflower-production map, Ukraine produced approximately 13.63 million tonnes of sunflower seeds in 2016, making it the world’s largest producer that year.

Russia followed with approximately 11.01 million tonnes.

The difference becomes particularly striking when these production quantities are translated into the size of countries on a cartogram. Countries producing relatively small quantities of sunflower suddenly become visually tiny, while the major producers expand dramatically.

Together, Ukraine and Russia produced about 24.64 million tonnes of sunflower seeds in 2016. That was substantially more than the output of any other individual country.

Argentina ranked third with about 3.00 million tonnes, followed by China with approximately 2.59 million tonnes and Romania with around 2.03 million tonnes.

2016 Sunflower Seed Production

Country Production Ukraine 13.63 million tonnes Russia 11.01 million tonnes Argentina 3.00 million tonnes China 2.59 million tonnes Romania 2.03 million tonnes

Figures shown are from the Worldmapper presentation of FAO data for 2016.

Why Does the Map Look So Different?

A conventional political map represents territorial area. Russia therefore appears enormous because of its vast geographical territory.

A sunflower-production cartogram uses a completely different measurement: the quantity of sunflowers harvested.

The Worldmapper map specifically states that territory size is proportional to the amount of sunflowers harvested in 2016. Its underlying data came from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), with estimates used for some missing values.

This means that a country’s appearance on the cartogram does not represent its actual geographical boundaries or land area.

It represents its importance in the selected agricultural statistic.

Ukraine’s Extraordinary Sunflower Industry

Sunflower is particularly important to Ukraine’s agricultural economy. FAO documentation describes sunflower seed as Ukraine’s main oilseed crop, with production historically concentrated in the country’s southern and eastern regions.

The crop has considerable economic importance because sunflower seeds are used to produce sunflower oil and sunflower meal. Sunflower oil is an important vegetable oil traded internationally, while the remaining meal can be used as animal feed.

The importance of the crop is also reflected in international agricultural assessments. The OECD-FAO Agricultural Outlook has described Ukraine as the world’s largest sunflower-seed producer, followed by Russia, with the two countries together accounting for more than half of global production in the period examined by that report.

Russia Is Another Global Production Center

Russia is also a major center of sunflower cultivation.

The combination of suitable agricultural conditions, extensive farmland and established processing infrastructure has made sunflower an important oilseed crop in the country.

When production is used instead of geographical area to redraw the world, Russia’s agricultural importance becomes much more visible. The 2016 Worldmapper data place Russia immediately behind Ukraine in sunflower production.

Argentina, China and Romania Follow

Although Ukraine and Russia dominate the 2016 production map, several other countries are significant producers.

Argentina produced roughly 3 million tonnes in 2016, while China produced approximately 2.59 million tonnes. Romania followed with slightly more than 2 million tonnes.

Other countries in the 2016 top ten included Bulgaria, Türkiye, Hungary, the United States and France.

This geographic distribution demonstrates that sunflower production is not confined to Eastern Europe. The crop is cultivated across Europe, Asia, North and South America and parts of Africa.

Why Sunflowers Matter Beyond Agriculture

Sunflower production is closely connected with the global edible-oil market.

Sunflower seeds can be processed into vegetable oil, making production levels relevant to food manufacturing, international trade and consumer markets. The crop also contributes by-products such as sunflower meal, which has uses in livestock feed.

Consequently, major changes in production in leading countries can have effects beyond the agricultural sector.

A disruption affecting a major producer can potentially influence processing, exports and international vegetable-oil markets.

A Cartogram Can Reveal Hidden Economic Geography

The most fascinating feature of the map is not simply that Ukraine and Russia produce large quantities of sunflowers.

It is the way the cartogram changes our perception of the world.

On a conventional map, countries are organized according to their geographical position and physical boundaries. On a production cartogram, countries effectively become visual representations of an economic statistic.

Large agricultural producers expand.

Smaller producers shrink.

Countries with little or no relevant production can become extremely small or disappear from the visual emphasis of the map.

This approach can make global production patterns much easier to understand at a glance.

The 2016 Map Is a Historical Snapshot

It is important to remember that the map represents 2016, rather than current sunflower production.

Agricultural production changes from year to year because of weather, planting decisions, commodity prices, yields, economic conditions and other factors.

FAOSTAT’s crop-production database now covers annual production and harvested-area data through 2024, meaning considerably newer information is available for studying the evolution of sunflower production.

The historical 2016 cartogram should therefore be viewed as a snapshot of the global sunflower landscape at that particular time.

The Broader Global Picture

Sunflower is one of the world’s important oilseed crops. A global strategy published by the Crop Trust using FAOSTAT data estimated average annual sunflower production at around 52 million tonnes during 2016–2021, with more than half concentrated in Ukraine and Russia.

That concentration explains why these two countries occupy such a dominant visual position on sunflower-production maps.

The map ultimately illustrates an important lesson about global agriculture: the physical size of a country does not necessarily correspond to its importance in producing a particular commodity.

A small country can be a major agricultural producer of a specific crop, while a huge country may contribute relatively little to that commodity.

The Bigger Story Behind the Map

The sunflower cartogram transforms an ordinary agricultural statistic into a visual story about food production, trade and economic geography.

In 2016, Ukraine and Russia stood far ahead of other individual countries in sunflower-seed production. Argentina, China and Romania formed another group of major producers, while several European, American and African countries contributed significant quantities as well.

What looks like a distorted map is therefore not really a distorted representation of agricultural data—it is a different way of seeing the world.