Tag: World

• Ghost towns of the world: where places were abandoned, and why

  

  I mapped 5,448 abandoned settlements in open data and coloured each by why it emptied: mining, war, disaster, reservoirs, Chernobyl and medieval decline. 80% of Wikidata’s ghost towns are American, and only 5% say why.

  Tristan Hotham

  Data stories, Games & other interests

  history, medieval, cities, population, industry, world maps, Classification, Data bias, Lost places, Twentieth century, Wikidata, Wikipedia, World

• In the shadow of the volcano: who lives near the world’s volcanoes

  

  I mapped all 1,215 of the world’s Holocene volcanoes and the people around them. At least 147 million people live within 30 km of one, and 76 volcanoes have a million or more neighbours.

  Tristan Hotham

  Data stories, Games & other interests

  Data bias, Geology, landscape, Natural hazards, population, Present day, World, world maps

• When did your country lose 11 days? Four great switches, mapped

  

  Britain lost eleven days in 1752, Russia thirteen in 1918, and Saudi Arabia switched its civil calendar only in 2016. I mapped when every country the sources date changed calendar, side of the road, units and votes for women.

  Tristan Hotham

  Data stories, Games & other interests

  Animated timeline, Clocks and calendars, Early modern, Europe, Government, history, maps, Place search, Twentieth century, Wikipedia, Women and gender, World, world maps

• The internet’s seabed: every submarine cable, when it was laid, and the choke points

  

  608 cables on the sea floor carry the internet between continents. I mapped when each was laid, how Google, Meta, Amazon and Microsoft came to part-own 55% of the planned length, and the straits and beaches where dozens squeeze through together.

  Tristan Hotham

  Data stories, Games & other interests

  coast and sea, Internet, Oceans, Present day, Science and technology, technology, World

• Al-Idrisi’s world: the map made for Roger II of Sicily, set against a modern one

  

  In 1154 a Muslim geographer in Palermo drew the known world for the Norman king of Sicily, south at the top. I read 431 of its towns and measured it: directions right to a median 10 degrees, and Sicily drawn best and biggest of all.

  Tristan Hotham

  Data stories, Games & other interests

  Europe, history, Map accuracy, medieval, old maps, World, world maps