At first glance, NASA's compilation of night shots from space appears to demostrate where earth's population resides. The dark swathes across the Sahara, the interior of Australia, the upper Amazon, Tibet, the Gobi desert, and most of Canada and Alaska depict sparsely populated areas. But closer examination also reveals the distribution of wealth. The brightest areas are the US, Western Europe and Japan, representing concentrations of both people and wealth (indicated by energy consumption). Compare to India, which has a population larger than those three areas combined, yet generates considerably less light at night. Bangladesh has roughly the same number of poeple as Japan, yet doesn't come close in terns of energy consumption. Sub-Saharan Africa is mostly dark with the exception of the area around Johannesburg in the southeast and the city of Cape Town at the southern tip. North Korea is barely visible, especially next to the much richer South Korea. And can you find Madagascar at all?