Maps seemed to be everywhere in 2013, a trend I like to think we encouraged along with August's 40 maps that explain the world.
Maps can be a remarkably powerful tool for understanding the world and
how it works, but they show only what you ask them to. You might
consider this, then, a collection of maps meant to inspire your inner
map nerd. I've searched far and wide for maps that can reveal and
surprise and inform in ways that the daily headlines might not, with a
careful eye for sourcing and detail. I've included a link for more
information on just about every one. Enjoy.
1. Where the world's people live, by economic status
Those dots represent people: the brighter the dot, the more people.
The color shows their country's average income level: blue is richest
and yellow is poorest. I want to start with this map because it's a
reminder that the world is first and foremost made up of people; to me,
the best maps are primarily about showing us people, not politics or
geography. It's also a way of looking at the divisions in the world
other than by political borders; that's a theme we'll come back to. (One
caveat to this map: it doesn't show economic variations within
countries, just the national averages.)
2. How humans spread across the world
Human beings first left Africa about 60,000 years ago in a series of
waves that peopled the globe. This map shows where those waves of
migration went and when they occurred (the "40K" over Europe means
humans arrived there about 40,000 years ago). You can see that humans
have the most history in the Middle East, India and of course Africa
itself (the map does not show the much longer history of migration
within Africa). We are relative newcomers to the Americas, one of the
reasons it has not until very recently been as densely populated as
other parts of the world.
3. When the Mongols took over the known world
The Mongol conquests are difficult to fathom. Although their most
important technology was the horse, they conquered much of the known
world from China to Europe, a series of wars that killed tens of
millions of people, then a substantial chunk of the world's population.
The Mongols also established what may well have been the largest empire
in history until the British surpassed them six long centuries later.
It's difficult to understate how much we still feel their impact today;
the country we know of today as Iraq has never fully recovered from the 1258 sacking of Baghdad, which until then had been a center of global wealth and knowledge.
4. When Spain and Portugal dominated the world
This map shows the Spanish and Portuguese empires at their height.
They didn't hold all of this territory concurrently, but they were most
powerful from 1580 to 1640, when they were politically unified. Portugal
would later pick up more territory in Africa, not shown on the map. We
often forget that Spain controlled big parts of Europe, in Italy and the
Netherlands. In the Middle Ages, Spain and Portugal were so powerful
that they signed a set of treaties literally dividing up the globe
between them. They became so rich so quickly that their trade with the
Ottoman Empire, perhaps the other great imperial power of the time,
filled the Ottoman economy with more gold than it could handle and
plunged it economy into an inflationary crisis so severe that the empire never fully recovered.
5. Major shipping routes in the colonial era
This map shows British, Dutch and Spanish shipping routes from 1750
to 1800. It's been created from newly digitized logbooks of European
ships during this period. (Unfortunately, the French data is not shown.)
These lines are the contours of empire and of European colonialism,
yes, but they're also the first intimations of the global trade and
transportation system that are still with us today. This was the
flattening of the world, for better and for worse.
6. Actual European discoveries
Americans have mostly come around to accept that, despite what our
grade school teachers may have told us, Europeans did not "discover"
America; the original arrivals had done that 15,000 years earlier. But
Europeans did discover lots of land that had never been before seen by
human eyes. You can, embedded in this map, see successive waves of
European exploration: first the Portuguese, then the Spanish, then the
British and much later the Americans. The map's creator, the always-insightful Bill Rankin,
writes, "this map particularly underscores the maritime expertise of
Pacific Islanders. Unlike the islands of the Atlantic and Indian Oceans,
nearly all of the Pacific was settled by the 14th century."
7. How countries compare on economic inequality
Yes, the United States has worse income inequality than Nigeria.
That's according to a metric called the Palma Ratio that measures
economic inequality. Read more here about how the metric works and the fascinating results of using it to compare the world's countries.
8. If the polar ice caps completely melted
It's not clear precisely when
the polar ice caps will melt completely. But if and when they do, sea
levels will rise by 216 feet. This map shows what the world would look
like then. Given how many people live near coastlines today, that's not
good. You can see National Geographic's wonderful, full interactive here.
9. Where the world's 30 million slaves live
This is not some soft, liberal, by-modern-standards definition of
slavery. This is slavery. There are 30 million people living today as
forced laborers, forced prostitutes, child soldiers, child brides in
forced marriages or other forms of property. There are 60,000 right here in the United States
– yes, really. This map shows the proportion of each country that is
enslaved. It's highest in Mauritania, a shocking four percent, due in
part to social norms tolerating the practice. A little more than one
percent of people in India are enslaved, which translates to 14 million
Indians living as slaves today. You can see the breakdown by numbers of slaves here.
10. Our globalized economy: What it takes to make nutella
Put this map alongside No. 5 above, of European colonial-era shipping
routes. This is the end product of today's ultra-globalized economy. A
simple jar of Nutella requires natural resources from four continents,
vast manufacturing facilities in entirely different countries and a
supply and distribution chain that spans the globe.
11. Where populations are growing and shrinking
The world is in for some major demographic changes over the next
generation or two. Populations are booming in Africa, growing faster
than ever before, just as they're slowing in Asia and outright shrinking
in Japan and Eastern Europe. What's most interesting about these
population changes is what demographers say they will mean for the
world's political and economic future. For more, read: The amazing, surprising, Africa-driven demographic future of the Earth, in 9 charts.
12. Walls of the world
A French non-governmental organization put together this map of the
world's major physical barriers – its most consequential walls. The red
lines indicate walls and barriers meant to prevent or control
immigration; you see a number of those particularly where there are rich
countries next to poorer countries. The green walls are mostly
political barriers, such as the 1,700-mile-long "Moroccan Wall" dividing
Morocco-occupied Western Sahara, the West Bank separation barrier and
the Korean demilitarized zone. No single map of something this
controversial and sensitive is ever going to satisfy everyone, but it's a
fascinating glimpse into why and where we choose to limit human
movement.
13. The Arctic land grab
As the polar ice caps melt, it's creating something that the world
hasn't seen in a long time: vast, unclaimed territory. That territory
also happens to include oil and other natural resources, as well as
valuable trade routes. Five countries are competing to claim the new
land: Canada, Russia, Norway, Denmark and the United States. How the
Arctic land-grab resolves is so potentially important that even Canada is getting much more assertive.
14. Who wins Nobel prizes (and who doesn't)
It's no secret that Europeans and Americans win most Nobel prizes.
But just how much more is pretty astounding. When I looked into how the
Nobel prizes have broken down over their century-plus history, I was
surprised by the results, which you can see here illustrated in maps and charts.
One of several facts from the data: More than one in every three Nobel
laureates is from the United States. Put another way, the United States
has 4 percent of the world's population and 34 percent of its Nobel
laureates.
15. The 17 countries that could have housing bubbles
You probably remember the U.S. housing bubble burst of 2007 (it was
pretty memorable). According to a recent economic estimate, a full 17
countries could face potential housing bubbles today. Alarmingly, that
includes China, the world's second-largest economy. Read more here on the countries at risk and what could happen if they burst.
16. The happiest and least happy countries
A recent study conducted by the United Nations and Columbia
University attempted to infer happiness measuring a series of social
metrics and survey results. Some of the results are unsurprising:
wealth, health, political stability and economic equality all appear to
coincide with happiness. But there are some real surprises in the data.
Latin America and the Caribbean are, by this measure, the happiest on
average in the world. Here's why that might be and more lessons from the data.
17. All terror attacks worldwide in 2012
This study
by the University of Maryland-based National Consortium for the Study
of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism tracked every single terrorist
attack in 2012 (the most recent year for which all data was available).
This should drive home how remarkably safe Americans are from terrorism
today. It drives home who the real victims of terrorism are. And it
reveals some of the global hotspots for terrorist activity and all the
instability and mayhem that can bring. Some readers might be surprised
to see how much terrorism there is, for example, in Nigeria, in Kenya
and most especially in eastern India, where the Maoist "Naxalite"
insurgency has been wreaking havoc for almost 50 years.
THE AMERICAS
18. North America's languages, before colonialism
This a remarkable reminder of the diversity and cultural richness of
North America before it was so completely transformed by the arrival of
Europeans – to the terrible detriment of the societies that once
proliferated here. It's also a reminder that some of these societies had
spread widely and established themselves deeply, despite the common
American perception today of a mishmash of disparate and unconnected
tribes.
19. Where place names come from in the Americas
This map shows the origin language for place names in the Americas.
For example, the word "Texas" comes from the Caddoan language, of the
Caddo people who lived in what is today East Texas. It's a fascinating
lens into the Americas' history, of which Europeans arrived or conquered
where, as well as a legacy of the people who lived here first. Bill
Rankin, the map's creator, has this chestnut: "'Huron' derives from a French slur for the hairy natives (it shares a root with 'hirsute.')"
20. American ancestry by county
This map, which shows the dominant ancestry in each U.S. county, is a
wonderful show of American diversity and a living museum of America's
history of immigration, voluntary as well as forced. There are countless
stories embedded in this map, and not just American stories. Much of
this immigration was driven by far-away wars, economic catastrophes,
famines or other major historical events, most especially the
trans-Atlantic slave trade. In that sense, America's diversity – like
this map showing it – is a global story.
21. What territory Mexican drug cartels control
This infographic shows which Mexican drug cartels control what
territory. It's a staggering indication of how powerful these groups
have become, as well as a glimpse into the vast cartel economy they
collectively run – one in which territory is especially important.
AFRICA
22. The empires of Africa, before colonialism
This map of indigenous African empires is not exhaustive. It spans
two thousands years from 500 B.C. to 1500 A.D., so these empires were
not concurrent; some existed centuries apart. But it shows that, like
with North America and perhaps even more so, sub-Saharan Africa was rich
with vast and powerful empires long before the Europeans arrived. (One
of the biggest, Ethiopia, was actually unusually and perhaps uniquely
successful in resisting European imperialism.) The Songhai Empire, at
its peak in the 14th century, was a global center of culture and
learning, based in the still-famous mosques of Timbuktu.
23. What Africa might look like if it had never been colonized
Historical counterfactuals aren't much more than informed
speculation, but this one is still awfully interesting. Made by the
Swedish artist Nikolaj Cyon, the map asks what Africa would look like
today if colonialism had never happened. (Africa's present-day borders
were determined largely by colonialism, which continues to create lots
of very big problems.) Cyon drew these boundaries based on a study of
political and tribal units in 1844, the eve of Europe's "scramble for
Africa." He oriented it with south at the top to subvert the traditional
Europe-on-top orientation. You can see it here with north on the top, if that's easier for you to read.
24. The amazingly diverse languages of Africa
This is another way of looking at and thinking about Africa's
divisions, without seeing them through the European-imposed colonial
borders that we have today. Each shade is a language; each color is a
group of languages. Yes, there are an awful lot of languages in Africa,
reflecting the continent's deep history and its diversity. You can see
that a number of the borders, such as in Kenya or Cameroon or Nigeria,
overlap big swathes of people who speak entirely different language
families.
EUROPE
25. Europe, as mapped by tweets
This shows tweets made in Europe in location and language between
Oct. 23 and Nov. 30, 2012, with each language shown in a different
color. It's no surprise that more populous and richer countries have
more tweets. But what's most interesting is places where languages don't
quite line up with national borders. Look at all those German-language
tweets in the parts of the Poland that once belonged to the German
Empire. Or look at how Belgium seems to disappear, the French- and
Dutch-speakers merging into France and the Netherlands. More on the
findings here; click here for a much larger version that shows the whole world and with the languages labeled.
26. How the Barbarian Invasions reshaped Europe
Europe was completely reshaped in the third, fourth and fifth
centuries. The Huns of far-Eastern Europe and Central Asia invaded
Central Europe, destroying the Gothic kingdoms. Germanic tribes
conquered much of Spain and North Africa. And, of course, the Visigoths
of southeastern Europe sacked Rome in 410 A.D. All of this destroyed the
Roman Imperial system, starting the dark ages. But it also sparked mass
migrations throughout Europe that reshaped the continent in ways that
are still with us.
27. When the Vikings spread across Europe
A few hundred years later, the Vikings had their turn. We often
forget just how far they spread. Red, orange and yellow shows areas
under their control. Green shows areas where they frequently raided. The
word "Russia" actually comes from the Rus tribe, who were descendants
of Viking settlers. The "Vikings" who took over Sicily and southern
Italy were actually Normans, Vikings who had conquered parts of Northern
France, settled in, and then later sailed to Italy. Their descendants
also included William the Conqueror.
28. World War II in Europe, day by day
http://youtu.be/WOVEy1tC7nk
This one speaks for itself and is a fascinating watch; there are countless stories embedded in these frames. If you enjoyed this, I would encourage you to watch this version that includes Asia and the Pacific as well.
29. The word for "bear" in European languages
The Cold War taught us to think of Europe in terms of
East-versus-West, but this map shows that it's more complicated than
that. Most Europeans speak Romance languages (orange countries),
Germanic (pink) or Slavic (green), though there are some interesting
exceptions.
30. People who die trying to immigrate to Europe
This shows where and how people die trying to migrate into Europe. In
October, when 300 would-be African immigrants to Europe died when their
boat capsized off the Italian island of Lampedusa, it was seen as a
sign of how dangerous and deadly migration paths into Europe had become. It's a result of wide economic disparity between Africa and Europe as well as European policies to prevent immigration. It's an ugly issue and, as this map shows, it kills many, many people every year.
THE MIDDLE EAST
31. The Islamic states of the world, from 1450 to today
This doesn't show all Muslim-majority countries – southeast Asia and
parts of Africa aren't included – but it does show the history of
political borders and nation-states in most of the Islamic world from
1450 though today. You'll notice themes of invasion and occupation, or
empires rising and falling.
32. The 1916 European treaty to carve up the Middle East
In 1916, French, British and Russian diplomats signed an agreement to
divide up the Ottoman Empire into areas of direct control and "spheres
of influence." It's easy to overstate how big of a role this treaty actually played
in designing modern Middle East borders; in many ways, those divisions
had already organically occurred during Ottoman rule. Still, it did fall
along the Middle East's problematic present-day borders, and you hear
about that a lot today, so here it is.
33. The religious lines dividing today's Middle East
Religious distinctions are deeply important for many of the problems
in today's Middle East, particularly between Sunni and Shia Muslims in
Syria and Iraq. This map shows not just that those divisions cross of
national borders, but that they're all over the place. This is one of
many reasons why these conflicts can be so persistent.
34. How the 1948 Arab-Israeli war helped lead to Israel's borders
Lots of maps show Israel's territory from the 1967 Israeli-Arab war
to the present, but I thought I'd show this map from the country's 1947
founding onward. The leftmost map shows, in blue, Israel as established
by United Nations resolution in 1947. Red shows the initial Arab state;
green is the Arab state after the 1949 armistice. The center map shows
the first months of the 1948 Israeli-Arab war and the advance of Arab
armies to retake what they saw as rightful Arab land. The right-most map
shows the advance of Israeli armies in the latter half of that war. At
the end of fighting, Israel occupied much of what is considered Israeli
land today.
ASIA
35. Percentage of Indian homes with toilets
India's ongoing rise as a new economic powerhouse continues to be an
amazing story. But much of the world's second-most-populous country
still lives in poverty or in otherwise difficult conditions. This map, created from census data
by the designer Avinash Celestine, shows what percentage of families in
each district have a toilet in their homes. As you can see, it's less
than half in huge swathes of the country, a reminder of how far India
still has to go.
36. The languages of China and the surrounding area
This map, for me, is a wonderful way to observe China's very long
history of expansion and consolidation. Remember that each shade is a
different language. Even after thousands of years, Chinese itself
remains remarkably diverse, particularly in the country's dialect-rich
southeast. And there are many entirely different language families:
Mongolian in the north; the Turkic language Uighur in the West and; in
southern Guangxi province, the Zhuang language that's closer to Thai.
This is another of Steve Huffman's amazing creations; see a larger version here.
37. The WWII firebombing of Japan
This map shows each Japanese city that was bombed during World War
II, an American city of equivalent size, and the percentage of the city
estimated destroyed by the bombings. All Americans learn about the two
atomic bombs the U.S. dropped on Japan at the end of the war, and we're
starting to become more aware of the firebombing campaigns that wiped
out much of Germany, including civilians. But we are nowhere near
confronting the U.S. firebombing of Japan, which killed several times as
many people as the atomic bombs and devastated Japan's
wooden-constructed cities. By the time the war ended, 30 percent of the
residents in Japan's largest 60 cities were homeless.
38. Territorial claims in the South China Sea
It's no secret that China claims islands and maritime territory in the South China Sea that other countries see as theirs. But this map shows just how assertive China's claim is – Beijing claims everything in red, a giant scoop of an area way, way beyond Chinese soil. China's neighbors are very, very conscious of feeling a bit bullied, and this map shows why.
39. The naval firepower in the Pacific
The Pacific Ocean, after being set on fire by World War II, is still
heavily militarized. Japan, even though its U.S.-imposed constitution
bans warfare and codifies pacifism, still has a pretty substantial navy.
So does Russia, a legacy of the Cold War. And China's is, of course,
growing substantially. All of this combines with rising nationalism in
East Asia, China's not-misguided fear that the United States is
attempting to contain them and growing concern about China itself.
40. Every airline flight in the world over 24 hours
This map shows every airline flight around the world during a single
24-hour day, looped endlessly. To me, it's the perfect way to end. Even
with no borders, you can still see so much of how the world is shaped.
Where people are connected and now, where they are wealthier and not,
how and where people have made social and economic connections and how
deep they go.
1. Where the world's people live, by economic status
Data source: Oak Ridge National Laboratory, World Bank. (David Whitmore, John Grimwade / National Geographic)
2. How humans spread across the world
Click to enlarge. (New Scientist)
3. When the Mongols took over the known world
(Wikimedia commons)
4. When Spain and Portugal dominated the world
Click to enlarge. (Wikipedia)
5. Major shipping routes in the colonial era
Data source: Climatological Database for the World’s Oceans (James Cheshire)
6. Actual European discoveries
Click to enlarge. (Bill Rankin/Radical Cartography)
7. How countries compare on economic inequality
Bluer countries have better income equality. Redder countries are more unequal. Data: CGDev, DIIS (Max Fisher / Washington Post)
8. If the polar ice caps completely melted
Click to enlarge. (National Geographic © September 2013 National Geographic Society / Full source info here)
9. Where the world's 30 million slaves live
Share of each country's population that is enslaved. Data source: Walk Free Global Slavery Index. (Max Fisher/Washington Post)
10. Our globalized economy: What it takes to make nutella
Click to enlarge. (OECD)
11. Where populations are growing and shrinking
Blue
countries have growing populations; red countries are shrinking. Purple
are growing slowly or not at all. Data source: United Nations
Population Fund. Click to enlarge. (Max Fisher/Washington Post)
12. Walls of the world
Source:
"Atlas des migrants en Europe. Géographie critique des politiques
migratoires européenne," Armand Colin. (Nicolas Lambert / MigrEurop)
13. The Arctic land grab
(The Economist)
14. Who wins Nobel prizes (and who doesn't)
Click to enlarge. (Max Fisher/Washington Post)
15. The 17 countries that could have housing bubbles
The 17 countries identified as having potential housing bubbles. Click to enlarge. (Washington Post)
16. The happiest and least happy countries
Data source: Columbia University's World Happiness Report. Click to enlarge. (Max Fisher/Washington Post)
17. All terror attacks worldwide in 2012
Click to enlarge. (Start GTD)
THE AMERICAS
18. North America's languages, before colonialism
Click to enlarge. Data source: Ives Goddard. (Wikipedia Commons)
19. Where place names come from in the Americas
Click to enlarge. (Bill Rankin/Radical Cartography)
20. American ancestry by county
Click to enlarge. (U.S. Census Bureau)
21. What territory Mexican drug cartels control
Click to go to source. (Farhana Hossain and Xaquín G.V. / The New York Times)
AFRICA
22. The empires of Africa, before colonialism
Click to enlarge. (Wikipedia)
23. What Africa might look like if it had never been colonized
Click to enlarge. (Nikolaj Cyon)
24. The amazingly diverse languages of Africa
Data source: World Language Mapping System/Ethnologue. (Steve Huffman/WorldGeoDatasets)
EUROPE
25. Europe, as mapped by tweets
Each color represents a different language. See global version linked below. (Kalev H. Leetaru, Shaowen Wang, Guofeng Cao, Anand Padmanabhan, and Eric Shook)
26. How the Barbarian Invasions reshaped Europe
(Wikimedia commons)
27. When the Vikings spread across Europe
Click to enlarge. (Max Naylor/Wikimedia Commons)
28. World War II in Europe, day by day
This one speaks for itself and is a fascinating watch; there are countless stories embedded in these frames. If you enjoyed this, I would encourage you to watch this version that includes Asia and the Pacific as well.
29. The word for "bear" in European languages
Click to enlarge.
30. People who die trying to immigrate to Europe
Click to enlarge. Data source: UNITED For Intercultural Action (Olivier Clochard/Migrinter)
THE MIDDLE EAST
31. The Islamic states of the world, from 1450 to today
(M. Izady/Gulf 2000 Project)
32. The 1916 European treaty to carve up the Middle East
Data source: The Gulf/2000 Project and United Nations ReliefWeb (The Washington Post)
33. The religious lines dividing today's Middle East
Data source: The Gulf/2000 Project and United Nations ReliefWeb (The Washington Post)
34. How the 1948 Arab-Israeli war helped lead to Israel's borders
(Wikimedia commons)
ASIA
35. Percentage of Indian homes with toilets
Click to enlarge. Data source: Indian census, 2011 (Avinash Celestine / Data Stories)
36. The languages of China and the surrounding area
Each
shade is a different language; each color is a language group. Click to
enlarge. Larger version linked below. (Steve Huffman / World
GeoDatasets)
37. The WWII firebombing of Japan
Click to enlarge.
38. Territorial claims in the South China Sea
It's no secret that China claims islands and maritime territory in the South China Sea that other countries see as theirs. But this map shows just how assertive China's claim is – Beijing claims everything in red, a giant scoop of an area way, way beyond Chinese soil. China's neighbors are very, very conscious of feeling a bit bullied, and this map shows why.
39. The naval firepower in the Pacific
Click to enlarge. (Cameron Tulk)
40. Every airline flight in the world over 24 hours
Original video source here. Data source: AirTraffic LIVE. (Zurcher Hochschule school of Engineering)
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