For one of the web projects I am working in we have been throwing around the idea of having a world map as a navigation element. Each country would then be clickable. This kind of navigation has been done with hyperlinked bitmaps like the LL-Map project.

Or with flash like the Joshua project. I have not seen any implementations in HTML5 canvas or in SVG. It occurs to me that these technologies could be used. I am not deeply familiar with either technology. So I did some googling.
I found some interesting articles on the matter.

• Performance of SVG vs. Canvas
• How to Choose Between Canvas and SVG
• SVG or Canvas? Сhoosing between the two
• CanVG: Using Canvas to render SVG files

I am not sure that I have any answers but this is my thought towards the problem space.

There is one map of languages I have found which deserves to be mentioned. I am not sure of the technology used but it seems it would be either of these methods. It is the map of the Languages of California hosted at Berkeley.