CARTOGRAPHIES

Le monde expliqu en 40
cartes par un amricain
Publi le janvier 28, 2014 par MERIDIANES
Poster un commentaire
WASHINGTON POST
BY MAX FISHER
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. Ive 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. Ive included a link for more
information on just about every one. Enjoy.
1. Where the worlds people live, by economic status

Data source: Oak Ridge National Laboratory, World Bank. (David Whitmore,
John Grimwade / National Geographic)
Those dots represent people: the brighter the dot, the more people. The
color shows their countrys average income level: blue is richest and yellow is
poorest. I want to start with this map because its 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. Its also a way of
looking at the divisions in the world other than by political borders; thats a
theme well come back to. (One caveat to this map: it doesnt 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

(Wikimedia commons)
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 worlds population. The Mongols
also established what may well have been the largest empire in history until
the British surpassed them six long centuries later. Its 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

(Wikipedia)
This map shows the Spanish and Portuguese empires at their height. They
didnt 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

Data source: Climatological Database for the Worlds Oceans (James
Cheshire)
This map shows British, Dutch and Spanish shipping routes from 1750 to
1800. Its 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 theyre 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

(Bill Rankin/Radical Cartography)
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 maps 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

Bluer countries have better income equality. Redder countries are more
unequal. Data: CGDev, DIIS (Max Fisher / Washington Post)
Yes, the United States has worse income inequality than Nigeria. Thats
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 worlds countries.

8. If the polar ice caps completely melted

(National Geographic September 2013 National Geographic Society / Full
source info here)
Its 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, thats not good. You can see National Geographics wonderful, full
interactive here.

9. Where the worlds 30 million slaves live

Share of each countrys population that is enslaved. Data source: Walk Free
Global Slavery Index. (Max Fisher/Washington Post)
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 are60,000 right here in the United States yes, really. This
map shows the proportion of each country that is enslaved. Its 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

(OECD)
Put this map alongside No. 5 above, of European colonial-era shipping
routes. This is the end product of todays 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

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)
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 theyre slowing in Asia and outright shrinking in Japan
and Eastern Europe. Whats most interesting about these population changes
is what demographers say they will mean for the worlds 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

Source: "Atlas des migrants en Europe. Gographie critique des politiques
migratoires europenne," Armand Colin. (Nicolas Lambert / MigrEurop)
A French non-governmental organization put together this map of the
worlds 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 its a fascinating glimpse into why and where we choose to
limit human movement.

13. The Arctic land grab

(The Economist)
As the polar ice caps melt, its creating something that the world hasnt 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 doesnt)

(Max Fisher/Washington Post)
Its 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 worlds population and 34 percent of its Nobel laureates.

15. The 17 countries that could have housing bubbles

The 17 countries identified as having potential housing
bubbles. (Washington Post)
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 worlds 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

Data source: Columbia Universitys World Happiness Report. (Max
Fisher/Washington Post)
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.Heres why that might be and
more lessons from the data.

17. All terror attacks worldwide in 2012

(Start GTD)
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 Americas languages, before colonialism

Data source: Ives Goddard. (Wikipedia Commons)
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. Its
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

(Bill Rankin/Radical Cartography)
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. Its 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 maps 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

(U.S. Census Bureau)
This map, which shows the dominant ancestry in each U.S. county, is a
wonderful show of American diversity and a living museum of Americas
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, Americas diversity like this map showing it is a global
story.

21. What territory Mexican drug cartels control

(Farhana Hossain and Xaqun G.V. / The New York Times)
This infographic shows which Mexican drug cartels control what territory. Its
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

(Wikipedia)
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

(Nikolaj Cyon)
Historical counterfactuals arent 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. (Africas 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 Europes "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 thats easier for you to read.

24. The amazingly diverse languages of Africa

Data source: World Language Mapping System/Ethnologue. (Steve
Huffman/WorldGeoDatasets)
This is another way of looking at and thinking about Africas 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
continents 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

Each color represents a different language. See global version linked below.
(Kalev H. Leetaru, Shaowen Wang, Guofeng Cao, Anand Padmanabhan, and
Eric Shook)
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. Its no
surprise that more populous and richer countries have more tweets. But
whats most interesting is places where languages dont 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

(Wikimedia commons)
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

(Max Naylor/Wikimedia Commons)
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


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 its 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

Data source: UNITED For Intercultural Action (Olivier Clochard/Migrinter)
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 deadlymigration paths into Europe had become. Its a
result of wide economic disparity between Africa and Europe as well as
European policies to prevent immigration. Its 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

(M. Izady/Gulf 2000 Project)
This doesnt show all Muslim-majority countries southeast Asia and parts
of Africa arent included but it does show the history of political borders
and nation-states in most of the Islamic world from 1450 though today.
Youll notice themes of invasion and occupation, or empires rising and
falling.

32. The 1916 European treaty to carve up the Middle East

The Gulf/2000 Project and United Nations ReliefWeb (The Washington Post)
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." Its 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 Easts problematic present-day borders, and you hear
about that a lot today, so here it is.

33. The religious lines dividing todays Middle East

Data source: The Gulf/2000 Project and United Nations ReliefWeb (The
Washington Post)
Religious distinctions are deeply important for many of the problems in
todays 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 theyre 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 Israels borders

(Wikimedia commons)
Lots of maps show Israels territory from the 1967 Israeli-Arab war to the
present, but I thought Id show this map from the countrys 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

Data source: Indian census, 2011 (Avinash Celestine / Data Stories)
Indias ongoing rise as a new economic powerhouse continues to be an
amazing story. But much of the worlds 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, its 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

Each shade is a different language; each color is a language group. (Steve
Huffman / World GeoDatasets)
This map, for me, is a wonderful way to observe Chinas 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 countrys 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 thats closer to Thai. This is another of Steve Huffmans 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 were 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 Japans wooden-constructed cities. By the
time the war ended, 30 percent of the residents in Japans largest 60 cities
were homeless.

38. Territorial claims in the South China Sea

(Voice of America)
Its 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 Chinas claim is Beijing claims everything in red, a giant scoop of
an area way, way beyond Chinese soil. Chinas neighbors are very, very
conscious of feeling a bit bullied, and this map shows why.

39. The naval firepower in the Pacific

(Cameron Tulk)
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 Chinas is, of course, growing substantially. All
of this combines with rising nationalism in East Asia, Chinas 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

Data source: AirTraffic LIVE. (Zurcher Hochschule school of Engineering)
This map shows every airline flight around the world during a single 24-hour
day, looped endlessly. To me, its 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 not, where they are wealthier and not, how and
where people have made social and economic connections and how deep
they go.