Insurers Retreating From Climate-Risk Zones

For many Americans, one of the consequences of climate change is higher insurance premiums. In Homeowners Insurance in an Era of Climate Change, the Brookings Institution maps U.S. Treasury Federal Insurance Office data to show where home insurance is becoming more costly and harder to obtain for millions of Americans.

One way this is happening is through non-renewals of homeowners insurance. A non-renewal occurs when an insurance company decides not to continue a policy once it expires - usually because the property is deemed too risky to insure. This leaves homeowners scrambling to find new coverage, often at much higher prices or through limited options like state-run insurers.

The image above shows, on the left, Fire Hazard Severity Zones in California, side-by-side with home insurance non-renewal rates in the state. The dark blue areas on the Brookings Institution map (on the right) indicate higher rates of home insurance non-renewals. These areas appear to follow the Sierra Nevada mountain range.

The Sierra Nevada is heavily forested and therefore highly prone to wildfires, especially during California’s dry summer and fall seasons. This is clearly reflected in the fire hazard severity zones shown on the left. These maps suggest that insurance companies are significantly less likely to renew policies in high-risk wildfire areas due to the increasing frequency and cost of wildfire-related claims.

The Brookings Institution map also highlights a high rate of home insurance non-renewals along the Atlantic coast. This is likely driven by increased risks from hurricanes and rising sea levels. Interestingly, Florida does not show a particularly high rate of non-renewals on this map. This is largely because many private home insurance policies in the state have already been non-renewed in recent years or shifted to state-run insurers, such as the Citizens Property Insurance Corporation.

The Reforestation Interactive Map

The Nature Conservancy has released a new interactive map identifying 195 million hectares around the world where forest cover could be restored.

"Reforesting these areas could capture 2.2 billion tonnes of CO₂ per year, equivalent to removing 481 million passenger vehicles driven for one year."

Click on a country on the Reforestation Hub map to see how much land could be reforested, how many tonnes of CO₂ this would capture annually, and how that compares to the annual emissions from passenger vehicles.

The map is based on new research conducted by the Future Ecosystems for Africa program at the University of the Witwatersrand. The study identified areas where tree restoration could deliver maximum climate benefits without harming communities or ecosystems. All land selected for reforestation had to meet three key criteria:

• High Tree Cover Potential - Only areas capable of supporting 60% or more tree cover were considered.
• Current Land Use - Areas already forested or permanently covered by water (as of 2020) were excluded.
• Precautionary Safeguards - Agricultural land was excluded to avoid impacts on food security.

By selecting the View US Site button, you can explore the reforestation potential in each U.S. county. This version of the map is based on studies conducted by The Nature Conservancy. More information on the methodology used for the U.S. map can be found on its About page.

When Ocean Currents Collapse

AMOC Collapse Visualization

A new study suggests that global warming could paradoxically plunge Europe into dramatic cooling, leading to severe winter cold spells, more intense storms, and reduced rainfall. Average winter temperatures could plunge, sea ice could spread as far south as the British Isles, and nearly half the year could see temperatures below freezing.

The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) is one of the most important systems regulating Earth’s climate. Acting like a massive conveyor belt, AMOC moves warm water from the tropics northward and returns colder, denser water back south. This cycle drives weather patterns, moderates temperatures in Europe and North America, and helps maintain ecological and societal stability across much of the planet.

But that stability is under threat.

Due to rising global temperatures and the melting of polar ice, there’s growing scientific concern that the AMOC could weaken significantly - or even collapse entirely. If that happens, the resulting climate chaos could be both severe and long-lasting.

The Consequences of Collapse

To better understand and communicate what could happen if the AMOC collapses a new interactive map has been developed to visualize different scenarios. Built on state-of-the-art climate modeling from the 2025 study European Temperature Extremes under Different AMOC Scenarios in the Community Earth System Model by René van Westen and W. Baatsen, the tool allows users to explore projected regional impacts under different levels of AMOC weakening.

The AMOC Collapse Visualization map is based on a new study European Temperature Extremes under Different AMOC Scenarios in the Community Earth System Model by van Westen & Baatsen (2025). The study uses complex climate simulations to examine a scenario in which AMOC weakens by 80% in a world that is already 2°C warmer than pre-industrial levels.

In Europe, the cooling effect from a collapsed AMOC could override the general warming trend - creating a landscape of colder winters, more snow and ice, and frequent cold extremes. For example, London could face winter extremes as low as -19°C (-2.2°F), while Oslo might endure temperatures as low as -48°C (-55°F).

In the United States temperatures would generally continue to rise, the eastern seaboard would see the dual threat of sea level rise and stronger winter storms. Elsewhere in the world, the disintegration of oceanic balance could alter tropical monsoons and reduce the ocean’s ability to absorb carbon - a dangerous feedback loop that could accelerate global climate change.

When is the sun directly overhead?

The longest day of the year occurs this coming Saturday. In the Northern Hemisphere, the summer solstice is on June 21st. This is the day when the subsolar point - the location on Earth where the Sun is directly overhead at solar noon - reaches its northernmost position, directly above the Tropic of Cancer.

The subsolar point moves north and south throughout the year as the Earth orbits the Sun. At the summer solstice, it's at its highest point in the Northern Hemisphere, marking the beginning of summer and the day with the most daylight. Conversely, during the winter solstice around December 21st, the subsolar point is at its southernmost position, directly above the Tropic of Capricorn, resulting in the shortest day of the year in the Northern Hemisphere.

The animated map above shows the subsolar point moving between the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn from June 16th (today) through the winter solstice. You can explore this for yourself on Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn - an interactive map that displays both tropics and the subsolar point for any day of the year. Use the day slider in the map sidebar to select a date. The line indicates where on Earth the Sun is directly overhead at noon for the selected day.

By coincidence, the road on which I live is perfectly aligned with the rising sun on the morning of the summer solstice. I discovered this fascinating detail on Solstice Streets, an interactive map that highlights roads in cities around the world which align with the sunrise on either the summer or winter solstice. The site blends astronomy with urban design, revealing how some modern streets unintentionally - or perhaps in some cases intentionally - mirror ancient alignments that celebrate solar events. 

Prosecuting Crimes Against Humanity

The Universal Jurisdiction Interactive Map (UJIM), developed by TRIAL International, is a comprehensive and accessible digital tool designed to track and display criminal cases related to serious international crimes such as genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, torture, enforced disappearances, and the crime of aggression.

Universal Jurisdiction is a legal principle that allows states to prosecute individuals for such crimes, regardless of where the crime occurred or the nationality of the perpetrators or victims. High-profile cases -such as the arrest of former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet - have demonstrated both its potential and its controversy, triggering legislative pushbacks in countries like Spain and Belgium. Nevertheless, there has been a steady global rise in trials based on universal jurisdiction, reflecting a growing commitment to international accountability.

The map reveals that European countries have carried out by far the most prosecutions under Universal Jurisdiction, with Germany and France leading the way. According to the map’s About page, “Germany has the highest number of convictions for international crimes,” while “France has opened the most investigations on economic actors.”

The UJIM catalogs cases from 196 countries and is updated annually.

800K Galaxies - 1 Map

The newly unveiled COSMOS-Web is the largest, most detailed map of the universe ever created. The map plots nearly 800,000 galaxies, and almost spans the entire 13.8-billion-year history of the cosmos.

The map is the result of a multinational collaboration led by astrophysicists at UC Santa Barbara and the Rochester Institute of Technology - using data collected by the James Webb Space Telescope. The telescope’s powerful infrared capabilities allowed researchers to peer deeper into space - and further back in time - than ever before, capturing galaxies from just a few hundred million years after the Big Bang. 

The interactive COSMOS-Web viewer offers a groundbreaking way to explore data from the James Webb Space Telescope firsthand. Users can pan and zoom across deep space, tracing the structure of the universe and inspecting individual galaxies. While the map answers some long-standing questions, it also raises profound new ones, challenging current models of cosmic evolution and opening the door to discoveries about dark matter, galaxy formation, and the very origins of light. By making this enormous dataset publicly accessible, the COSMOS team aims to empower astronomers around the world - from seasoned researchers to students - to investigate the early universe in new ways.

You can also explore the universe interactively using:  

• ESA Star Mapper - an interactive map visualizing 59,921 stars from the Hipparcos Catalogue
• Hubble Skymap - NASA's interactive Hubble-eye view of observable galaxies, stars, and nebulae

Discover the Toxin Polluters Near You

ToxOnline is an interactive map that allows you to see which facilities are releasing toxins in your area. Simply enter your address into the map to instantly discover where and how toxic chemicals are being released near your home.

The map displays markers for all facilities reporting toxic releases and includes a heat map showing the average toxic release in the searched area. By clicking on a facility marker, you can view its name, a list of released chemicals, and the average release (in pounds). After selecting a marker, you can click on the Facility menu option to view a graph of the facility’s average yearly releases, details about the primary release method, and a chemical checklist.

ToxOnline draws from a decade’s worth of EPA-reported data (2013–2023) for most views, and the most recent 2023 data for national-level statistics. This data comes from the EPA’s Toxics Release Inventory (TRI), a nationwide program that tracks the management and release of certain toxic chemicals by industrial facilities. The TRI includes chemicals known to have serious health or environmental effects, such as causing cancer, respiratory issues, or harming ecosystems.

The Real-Time 15 City Map

The concept of the '15 Minute City' aims to make urban living more livable and sustainable by ensuring that all essential individual needs can be met without reliance on a car or public transport. It's a very simple idea: ideally, an individual's essential needs should be accessible within a short travel distance.

Such a simple concept deserves a suitably simple-to-understand map. CThood Athens is precisely that - a map that both brings the 15 Minute City concept to life and visualizes which areas of Athens come closest to meeting its requirements.

At its core, CThood Athens uses open-source data and tools to illustrate how far you can walk from any given point in the city (within 5 or 15 minutes) and what types of essential destinations lie within that reach. As you hover over the map, it automatically and dynamically shows you how far you can walk in 15 minutes (or 5). Clicking on a location reveals how many amenities are accessible in that time. Further, clicking the 'Show Other' button breaks down these amenities into categories (e.g., the number of green spaces, supermarkets, pharmacies, etc.).

The interactivity of CThood is both engaging and informative. Users can toggle layers, filter by place type, and customize accessibility criteria. The inclusion of statistical indicators like the Gini Index and Lorenz Curve adds analytical depth, transforming the map into a dynamic research and planning tool.

CThood is a great example of how open data and thoughtful design can be combined to support more equitable, walkable cities. I assume the intention is to apply the same methodology to other cities and create interactive 15 Minute City maps for additional locations.

You can also find 15 Minute City visualizations for a number of other cities using the Maps Mania 15minutecity tag.

Via: quantum of sollazzo

Like Google My Maps but Better

Tasmap is a powerful platform that allows anyone to create personalized, interactive maps - like Google My Maps, but better!

To help you build your own custom maps, Tasmap includes built-in AI support. This means you can get started quickly by simply telling Tasmap what you want to include on your map.

For example, I gave Tasmap the following prompt:

Help me create a map of filming locations in Los Angeles, marking the locations of famous movie scenes and nearby places worth visiting.

In response, Tasmap generated LA on Location: A Cinematic Journey - an interactive map featuring around 40 locations used in famous films. 

The map includes an impressive sidebar article that introduces the locations in themed paragraphs. For example the concluding paragraph highlights several restaurants and eateries featured in movies (including Pat & Lorraine’s Coffee Shop in Eagle Rock, where the crew from Reservoir Dogs had their pre-heist breakfast).

One major flaw with Tasmap, however, is the lack of marker content. When you click on a marker, a small information window appears with options to open the location in Google Maps or get directions. But, bafflingly, there’s no contextual information about why the marker is there. For example: “Pat & Lorraine’s Coffee Shop – this is where the crew from Reservoir Dogs had their pre-heist breakfast.” That kind of detail is completely absent.

This omission also seems to persist in the Tasmap editor. While the editor allows you to add markers to your map, it doesn’t appear to offer a way to attach any descriptive content to them. So although it's easy to add markers, there’s no way to indicate what each one represents. At the very least, markers should have a title (which could appear on hover), but ideally, users should be able to click on a marker to open a window containing user-generated content.

This niggle aside, Tasmap is an impressive and thoughtfully designed platform for creating personalized, interactive maps. Its standout feature - built-in AI support - makes the process accessible to everyone, even those with no prior experience in mapping or design. With just a simple prompt, users can generate richly themed maps that are both visually appealing and easy to share.

EthnoGuessr

EthnoGuessr is a geography-based guessing game inspired by GeoGuessr, but instead of identifying real-world locations from street views, players are shown composite facial images representing average features of various ethnic groups. 

The facial averages (sourced from anthropological website Human Phenotypes) serve as clues. Players must guess the historical geographic origin of the ethnic group by selecting a location on a world map. After each guess, the game reveals the group's name, origin, and educational background, awarding points based on the accuracy of the guess. A new set of 10 ethnic groups is presented daily.

Handled insensitively, EthnoGuessr could raise concerns. Reducing complex, diverse populations to visual averages might unintentionally promote stereotyping. However, the game aims to counterbalance this by providing detailed context - including history, migration patterns, and cultural information - turning each guess into a learning opportunity.

By blending anthropology, genetics, and geography, EthnoGuessr encourages players to explore human diversity in a structured way. Still, those uncomfortable with a game based on ethnicity might prefer DoggoGuessr, a more lighthearted alternative where players identify the geographical origins of randomized dog breeds.

Is this the future of Street View?

Odyssey has released a demo of its new AI technology that enables users to explore 3D video environments in real time.

Odyssey is similar to Google Maps Street View in that it allows users to visually explore real-world environments. However, instead of navigating through static 360-degree photos, Odyssey uses AI-generated streaming video that responds dynamically to user input.

The result is a much more interactive and immersive 3D world - like stepping into a living, evolving version of Street View, where the environment can change and unfold as you move, almost like a video game. Unlike Street View, which relies on stitched-together images, Odyssey’s model generates new video frames on the fly, simulating realistic motion and spatial consistency in response to user movements.

The Odyssey Interactive Video demo includes a number of 360-degree scenes that you can freely explore. Most reviews I've read emphasize its potential for creating 3D worlds for games. However, I think there’s also clear potential for this technology to enhance mapping, for example as an advanced Street View layer. Currently, the interactive 3D environments produced by Odyssey are fairly low in resolution, though generally clear. It would be interesting to see whether the technology could generate higher-resolution models if it were trained on Google Street View imagery.

Via: Webcurios

Mapping A Billion Birds

The ADS-B Massive Visualizer now maps 1.5 billion eBird observations. This powerful, interactive geospatial tool shows where and when different bird species have been observed by eBird users around the world.

At first glance, the map may look like just a collection of dots - but click the selector button (the square with an arrow in the bottom left corner), and you can draw a region to explore in more detail. A sidebar will appear, listing all the bird species recorded in the selected area. For example, around my own neighborhood, the map reveals sightings of the Common Wood Pigeon, European Robin, Rock Pigeon, Eurasian Blackbird, Great Tit, House Sparrow, Eurasian Blue Tit, and Black-headed Gull (though oddly, no Parakeets or Magpies).

The map also supports filtering results using ClickHouse SQL, a dialect of SQL designed specifically for the ClickHouse database. It can be a little tricky to use, but I was able to run a few queries by selecting some of the provided examples and simply replacing the 'vernacularname' with the common name of the bird species I wanted to visualize.

The ADS-B Massive Visualizer also allows you to explore a number of other large databases. These include Planes (130 billion records), Places (from Foursquare), and Photos (seemingly sourced from Flickr).

Mapping Whale Superhighways

The WWF has launched a new interactive map Blue Corridors that brings 30 years of whale migration data to life. Using the map you can:

🛰️ See where whales travel.

⚠️ Learn what’s putting them at risk.

💙 Discover how we can protect them.

The new Blue Corridors interactive map is designed to support global whale conservation efforts by visualizing decades of scientific data in a way that is accessible, actionable, and urgently relevant. At its core, the map transforms over 30 years of satellite tracking and research into a compelling, interactive experience that allows you to explore whale migration routes, pinpoint major threats, and examine conservation priorities across ocean basins. 

The map is built on 1,429 satellite tracks and over 3.2 million kilometers of migratory data and integrates inputs from more than 50 different research institutions. The platform overlays whale movements with human activities such as shipping, fishing, and pollution to identify high-risk zones, supporting data-driven decisions to mitigate threats like ship strikes and entanglements.

You can interact with the map by species, threats, or regions. The sidebar menu also includes links to news and stories about whale conservation, whale migratory routes and the threats to marine environments.

Canadian Wildfire Smoke Forecasts

The wildfires currently raging in Canada have forced the evacuation of over 25,000 people across Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta. Manitoba has been the hardest hit, with entire communities like Flin Flon and Cranberry Portage forced to flee. The smoke from the wildfires is now affecting air quality not just in Canada, but in several U.S. states.

You can use Smoke Forecast to view BlueSky Canada smoke forecasts on an interactive map. These forecasts are produced by the Weather Forecast Research Team at the University of British Columbia, with support from multiple agencies. Utilizing information on fire locations, sizes, and atmospheric conditions, the map shows areas likely to be affected by wildfire smoke and estimates associated smoke concentrations.

Using the map, you can view hourly, daily average, and daily maximum ground-level PM2.5 concentrations - the fine particulate matter that poses significant health risks, especially to vulnerable populations. These forecasts can help individuals and public health agencies prepare for and respond to poor air quality conditions by providing timely, localized data. 

The Canadian Wildland Fire Information System's Interactive Map shows the current danger levels across Canada. The map also allows you to view the current estimated fire perimeters in near-real time and the locations of active fires.

Poland's Political Partition Persists

Here are two maps of Poland. The map on the left shows the partitioned Poland of 1815–1918 (from Lessons from the Partitions of Poland). The map on the right is Polish newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza's interactive map of this week's 2025 Polish Election.

It has long been a tradition, after every Polish election, for observers to note that current voting patterns in the country still seem to follow the country's old imperial borders. Back in 2013, Irena Grosfeld and Ekaterina Zhuravskaya wrote that the spatial pattern of the 2007 Polish election was “determined, to a large extent, by the Partitions of Poland (1772–1918).” In The Past in the Polish Present, the two professors argue that the very different economic and social policies pursued by Russia, Prussia, and Austria during their control of Polish territories for over a century have left a persistent legacy. This legacy once again appears to have been evident in this week’s Polish election.

In Do Poland’s 19th-century partitions still influence elections today?, Katarzyna Skiba takes a closer look at this apparent connection between modern Polish political beliefs and “the ongoing legacies of empire.” Her examination of Polish politics includes several critiques of what some consider an overly simplistic comparison.

Via: Datawrapper's Data Viz Dispatch

Hunger Maps

The Hunger Map by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations is a visual tool that illustrates the prevalence of undernourishment across the world. It visualizes the geographic distribution of hunger and helps monitor global food insecurity trends.

Hunger Map allows users to explore data across multiple geographic scales, including countries, subregions, and regions, providing a comprehensive view of where hunger is most prevalent and how it varies across different parts of the world. The Hunger Map also includes two main views 'Undernourishment' and 'Food Insecurity', and a timeline. The map’s timeline is set to a three-year average, which helps smooth out annual fluctuations and provide a more stable picture of food insecurity. This approach is particularly useful for assessing long-term trends and guiding policy decisions based on sustained patterns rather than temporary spikes or declines.

The World Food Programme's (WFP) HungerMap Live is a real-time, interactive visualization of hunger and food insecurity across 94 countries. At its core, the map highlights the prevalence of insufficient food consumption, using a color-coded system where red indicates areas of severe hunger and green shows relatively food-secure regions. 

The WFP map also shows levels of acute and chronic malnutrition, and the risk of inadequate micronutrient intake, offering a multidimensional view of food security. Beyond food consumption data, the map integrates key drivers and contextual factors such as conflict, climate hazards, and economic indicators like inflation, exchange rates, and trade balances. 

In regions where direct data collection is limited, WFP uses machine learning models trained on historic and environmental data to generate predictive estimates of food security. These estimates are updated frequently using inputs like rainfall, vegetation levels, and market conditions. This combination of actual and predicted data enables a dynamic, detailed understanding of hunger trends, helping humanitarian organizations and governments make more timely and informed decisions to respond to crises.

The Start of Hurricane Season

Hurricane season in the Atlantic Ocean officially begins on June 1 and ends on November 30 each year. The peak of hurricane activity typically occurs from mid-August to late October, with September 10 often cited as the statistical peak of the season. During this time, meteorologists and emergency planners closely monitor tropical systems and prepare for potential impacts to the U.S., Central America, the Caribbean, and parts of Canada.

To coincide with the start of the 2025 hurricane season, 157mph.com has released a new series of annual and decade-based hurricane maps. The Season Data maps allow users to view all hurricane tracks for each year since 2000, while the Decade maps provide historical context with storm data going back to the 1850s. For example, the animated GIF at the top of this post cycles through the hurricane tracks from each year in the 1990s.

On the yearly maps, users can explore all hurricane tracks for a specific year, with the ability to filter by storm type (hurricanes, tropical storms, or tropical depressions), landfall status, or individual storm name. Each track includes circular timestamps that can be clicked to reveal wind speed and atmospheric pressure at that specific point. These circles are color-coded to indicate the storm category at each timestamp.

You can discover how many hurricanes have passed near your home over the decades using StarNews’s Hurricanes that passed near me map. Simply enter your address to view the tracks of all hurricanes and tropical storms that have occurred near your location since the mid-19th century.

NOAA’s Historical Hurricane Tracks map also provides access to global hurricane data dating back as far as 1842. Using this interactive tool, you can search and visualize hurricane tracks by storm name, location, or date. For example, entering a storm like Hurricane Sandy (2012) displays its full track on the map. Data points along the track allow you to explore daily details such as wind speed and atmospheric pressure.

NOAA’s database includes records for more than 13,000 storms.

Is it Hot Right Now?

Is the UK hot right now? is a new interactive map that displays live, hour-by-hour temperatures across the country and shows how these temperatures compare to the historical average.

On the map, colored numbered markers indicate how much the current temperature is above or below the average at various locations. Clicking on a location’s marker opens a chart showing all recorded temperatures at that site since 2000. This chart includes a line representing the mean temperature, along with an evaluation of how the current temperature compares to the long-term average.

The UK version of the temperature comparison map was inspired by the Australian website Is it hot right now?. The concept offers a powerful visualization of climate data, and by comparing current temperatures with historical norms, it succeeds in making global warming feel far more tangible and relatable.

Is it hot right now? has proven to be a compelling, data-driven communication tool in the climate change conversation, prompting versions to emerge in other countries. In addition to the Australian and UK versions, there is a Spanish version - Es hoy un extremo? - and a German version - Ist es heiss? - (limited to the city of Bochum).

How the US Arms the Mexican Drug Cartels

There are only two gun stores in Mexico, and both are located on military bases. Yet the country still suffers from a major gun homicide problem. So where are the guns coming from?

In 2015, a Mexican military helicopter was shot down by cartel fighters using a Browning machine gun and a Barrett .50-caliber rifle. Both weapons were traced back to legal purchases in U.S. gun shops. This stark example highlights a brutal reality: Mexico’s gun violence crisis is fueled by American guns.

Mexico’s biggest challenge is that it shares a border with a country where almost anyone can legally purchase a gun. A significant number of these firearms are then trafficked across the border, primarily into the hands of violent drug cartels. According to The Conversation, an estimated 135,000 guns are smuggled annually from the U.S. into Mexico.

The Conversation, in Mexican drug cartels use hundreds of thousands of guns bought from licensed US gun shops, has been investigating the flow of illicit weapons trafficked from the U.S. to Mexico. The map at the top of this post shows that the majority of the firearms trafficked to Mexico came from cities and small towns that are close to the Mexican border. The article also features an interactive map showing the widespread presence of drug cartels across Mexico. This visual data underscores that trafficked American guns are contributing to violence in nearly every region of the country.

The gun violence crisis in Mexico cannot be fully understood without acknowledging the role of the United States as a major source of illicit firearms. While Mexico maintains some of the strictest gun control laws in the world, they are undermined by the easy availability of weapons just across the border. This cross-border flow of guns from the United States empowers criminal organizations, destabilizes communities, and fuels a cycle of violence that affects both nations.

Belt & Road vs TACO

In 2013, China launched its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) to boost trade with the rest of the world. Today, China is the world’s largest trading nation.

A key component of the BRI has been major investments in strategic overseas ports and airports. The Council on Foreign Relations has tracked these developments through two interactive maps:

• Tracking China’s Control of Overseas Ports
• Tracking China’s Investment in Airports

These maps highlight the global reach of China’s infrastructure investments, showing the locations of ports and airports with Chinese investment or partial ownership. In total, 129 ports worldwide now have some degree of Chinese ownership, and 46 airports have received Chinese investment.

China’s overseas port and airport investments reflect the broader ambition of the Belt and Road Initiative - to reshape global infrastructure in ways that advance both its economic and strategic objectives. While these projects can bring development opportunities, they also raise important concerns about ownership, sovereignty, and influence. The Council on Foreign Relations’ maps reflect these complexities, particularly through assessing each port's suitability for use by the Chinese military.

While China expands its global reach through the Belt and Road Initiative, the United States’ trade policy has taken a more erratic turn. Some Wall Street traders have dubbed it “TACO”,  short for “Trump Always Chickens Out”, a reference to the pattern of aggressive tariffs being announced, only to be walked back or removed shortly afterward. This inconsistency stands in stark contrast to the long-term infrastructure strategy China is pursuing.

Taxing for War

The average American spends nearly $3,000 a year funding the military. In contrast, if those Americans lived in Haiti, they would contribute just $1.70 per year to military spending.

The World BEYOND War's Mapping Militarism project presents a series of maps that illustrate how much individual countries spend on their militaries. The site’s “Money” map includes two key views: one showing the total military expenditure of each country and the other displaying per capita military spending. Both views offer a compelling way to compare global military budgets.

In 2024, the United States spent approximately $997.31 billion on its military - an amount that far surpasses the spending of any other country. By comparison, China, which has the second-largest military budget, spent $313.66 billion. However, when it comes to per capita spending, Israel ranks first, with an average of $4,988 per citizen. The United States follows, at $2,895.10 per person.

This disparity highlights not only the vast scale of U.S. and Israeli military investments but also the priorities and impacts of military funding across different societies.

The Largest Gathering in Human History

The Maha Kumbh Mela is one of the largest religious gatherings on Earth. It is a Hindu pilgrimage festival that occurs every 12 years. The 2025 Maha Kumbh Mela, held in Prayagraj, was particularly significant because it was a “Maha Kumbh”, an event that takes place only once every 144 years, due to a rare celestial alignment.

During the 2025 Maha Kumbh Mela, an estimated 663 million pilgrimages were made over a 45-day period. That’s equivalent to the combined populations of Russia, Japan, Vietnam, Brazil, Italy, and Australia. In fact, according to Reuters, “If this amount of people formed their own country, they would be the third largest behind China and India.”

It’s hard to envision the sheer number of people who attended this year’s Kumbh Mela in Prayagraj. However, Reuters attempted to visualize it. In their feature Faith in numbers: The unprecedented scale of India’s Maha Kumbh festival, the news agency used satellite imagery to explore the vast site of the gathering. The imagery takes viewers on a visual tour of the Ganges River and several key pilgrimage locations - including the site where 30 pilgrims tragically lost their lives in a stampede on January 29.

Reuters also uses flower petals as a creative way to illustrate the massive scale of attendance. During the festival, flower petals are traditionally showered on devotees and used to welcome spiritual leaders. In Reuters’ visualization, one petal represents 10,000 people. These petals are grouped into squares, each symbolizing 1 million people, to represent the 663 million pilgrimages. Let’s just say - it takes quite a bit of scrolling to see the full 663 million in the Reuters' visualization.

Unlocking Google’s Hidden Maps

Google's My Maps is a free tool that allows users to create custom maps. It's particularly useful for planning trips, visualizing geographic data, or sharing directions and locations with others.

Given the popularity of My Maps, there are likely millions of maps containing valuable local knowledge created by users around the world. Unfortunately, Google does not provide a centralized directory or searchable index of all public My Maps. While some public maps are technically indexed by Google, they are not easily discoverable through standard search methods.

This is where mapShare steps in - to fill in what the developers believe is a major gap. mapShare is a new platform designed to help users share and discover custom Google Maps. It acts as a community-powered discovery engine for My Maps, allowing users to tap into the vast but often hidden world of public custom maps.

🔍 Search by Location or Subject

You can use mapShare to search for maps based on either geographic location or topic. Whether you're looking for coffee shop guides in Tokyo, historical walking tours of Edinburgh, or national park maps in the U.S., mapShare makes it much easier to uncover useful and relevant maps created by Google's My Maps users.

📂Create and Curate Lists

Found a bunch of amazing maps about cycling in Europe or vegan eats in New York? With mapShare, you can create your own lists of favorite maps, organized however you like. These lists become personal libraries of curated knowledge - ideal for trip planning, research, or just collecting inspiration.

👥 Share With Friends and Family

Planning a group trip? Exploring your city with a partner? With mapShare, you can share your map lists with others, via a direct link or through social media, making it easy to collaborate or simply pass along helpful info.

Drawbacks

At the moment, when I search my neighborhood on mapShare, I’m met with a "results not found" message. This highlights one of the current drawbacks of relying on the crowd to curate Google’s My Maps. As an early adopter of mapShare, you may also encounter gaps in coverage - gaps that will only begin to close as the platform gains more users and contributions.

The Google Maps Platform Awards

To mark two decades of mapping innovation, Google has announced the Google Maps Platform Awards, a new program created to celebrate the developers and innovators who have shaped the digital mapping landscape over the past 20 years. For those who build with geospatial tools, APIs, and data this is your opportunity to showcase your best work.

Google aims to recognize the impact that developers have made with an awards program designed specifically for the community that made it possible. Submissions are now open for both new and past projects, and the deadline for submissions is 31st July. 

Submit your projects on Devpost.

A range of prizes is on offer for award winners, including physical trophies, digital badges, promotional opportunities, and some exclusive Google Maps swag.

You can learn more about the Awards, the ten award categories, and how to enter on the Google Maps Platform website.

Underwater Weather Forecasts

Current Map by Current Map is a powerful tool for visualizing ocean dynamics. This interactive map uses animated streamlines to depict tidal currents in coastal areas of the United States, offering high-resolution, real-time, and forecasted ocean current data. It's a practical, visually striking resource for sailors, scientists, and anyone with an interest in the ocean’s ever-changing tidal forces.

Animated streamlines are often used on interactive maps to visualize real-time and forecast wind currents. This is the first time I've seen them used for actual water currents. The use of animated streamlines on a map was I believe first demonstrated on Fernanda Viégas and Martin Wattenberg's Wind Map. Cameron Beccario further developed the concept by utilizing animated streamlines on a fully interactive map in his popular Earth Nullschool visualization of global weather conditions.

Behind the scenes of Current Map, sophisticated physics models simulate real-world ocean conditions, taking into account factors like tides and wind forcing to produce accurate short-term forecasts. Users of the map can explore these tidal forecasts directly in their browser, or download GRIB files for use with navigation software, making the data accessible even when offline. 

Is Flying Becoming More Dangerous?

CNN has used the Mapbox mapping platform to create a number of impressive animated mapped visualizations of recent 'plane close calls' at major U.S. airports. These animations are part of the interactive article Visualizing airplane safety: Are close calls and crashes really that common?, which investigates recent aviation incidents and public concerns about flight safety.

One of the most striking features of CNN’s visual storytelling is the use of Mapbox’s 3D tilt setting, which provides an oblique, dynamic viewpoint of each incident. This allows viewers to see aircraft movements not just across the map, but also through vertical space - highlighting changes in altitude, flight paths, and the proximity between planes. The animations use real flight data to reconstruct moments when aircraft came dangerously close to one another, often just seconds or hundreds of feet apart. These visualizations very effectively translate the technical aviation data into a clear picture of what would otherwise be mere abstract descriptions.

If you are concerned about whether flying is becoming more dangerous, CNN ultimately concludes that the underlying data does not support an increase in plane crashes or close calls. While the visualizations may appear alarming, the article reminds readers that these incidents are still statistically rare, and commercial air travel remains one of the safest modes of transportation. 

Map Any Event in History (or Fiction)

The Battle of Hastings mapped by th Map Simulation Platform

The Map Simulation Platform is a hugely ambitious project that uses AI to simulate text prompts in 3D on an interactive map. It employs natural language processing to interpret a prompt and render it on a geographical canvas. It's similar to a text-to-image AI tool, except here the output is a dynamic, map-based scenario rather than an AI generated image.

Using the tool, you can simulate historical events such as the Battle of Hastings, the Battle of Goose Green, or virtually any other historical event you'd like to see replayed on a map. It's also possible to simulate hypothetical scenarios, such as an earthquake in New York or a global nuclear war.

The Map Simulation Platform clearly has enormous potential as a tool for chronologically simulating important historical events. At present, it does a commendable job of extracting locations from historical narratives, geolocating them accurately, and plotting them on the map. However, from the examples I’ve explored so far, the playback options can feel a little chaotic, making it difficult to follow the sequence of events in a clear, chronological order.

One improvement that would greatly enhance the experience is the ability to view the timeline of a simulated historical event in distinct stages. If users could move forward and backward through the timeline using simple navigation buttons - and see an information window explaining and contextualizing each stage - it would make the platform a truly powerful historical tool. Allowing users to edit and expand on these events would also be essential for users who want to share their simulations. This would enable corrections of any AI “hallucinations” or factual inaccuracies, as well as the addition of missing but important events.

The platform does already offer the ability to download simulation data as a GeoJSON file. This means that users proficient with popular mapping platforms can export simulation data and build their own guided maps for historical events - adding customized context or supplementing any missing information.

Where Americans Live

There are 3,144 counties in the United States, but the population is far from evenly distributed among them. In fact, half of the U.S. population lives in just 144 counties, while the other half is spread across the remaining 3,000 counties.

This imbalance is neatly visualized in an interactive map created by Kyle Walker. County Population Share uses data from the 2024 U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates to generate an animated map that adds counties in order from most to least populated. As the animation unfolds, it's fascinating to watch the densely populated East and West Coasts fill in first, while the less populated counties of the Midwest appear only towards the end of the animation.

There is potential for this map to evolve into a more comprehensive visualization of U.S. population density. One obvious enhancement would be to provide users with access to the underlying data. Currently, hovering over a county reveals its name. It would be a simple yet valuable improvement to display additional information when a county is clicked - for example, its total population and the percentage of the U.S. population that resides there.

It could also be beneficial to enable users to create their own visualizations by interacting with the map. While this would require more development work, it should be possible to allow users to select and deselect counties to see the cumulative percentage of the U.S. population represented. For instance, users could select all the counties in a specific state to reveal the percentage of the national population living in that state.

The Atlas of Drowned Towns

I wasn’t able to find Atlantis on the Atlas of Drowned Towns. That’s probably because it only maps ‘communities that were displaced or disappeared to make way for ... reservoirs ... (and) large dams’ since 1860.

The map does, however, show the location of St. Thomas, Nevada, which was submerged under 60 feet of water in the 1930s during the construction of the Hoover Dam.  It also reveals the locations of hundreds of other towns, villages, homesteads, and Tribal homelands lost to dam construction across the United States and around the world.

The Atlas of Drowned Towns is a digital public history project that asks a deceptively simple question: What was there before the water came? In answering it, the project uncovers the deeply human costs of twentieth-century river development. As massive dams reshaped landscapes for hydroelectric power, irrigation, and flood control, entire communities were erased from maps - and often, from memory.

The project started with a focus on the Pacific Northwest, but it is expanding to include drowned towns across North America and beyond. Its interactive map and growing archive allow users to explore these sites through photographs, historical documents, personal stories, and even aerial imagery that shows what was lost.

If you or someone you know has a connection to a drowned place, the project wants to hear from you. The Share Your Story feature allows users to contribute memories, photos, artifacts, and insights, helping to fill gaps in the historical record and ensure these submerged stories are not forgotten.

Via: weeklyOSM

The Meaning Behind Our Place Names

Have you ever walked down a street and wondered where its name came from? Was it named after a historical figure, a local landmark, or an ancient word lost to time? The Open Etymology Map helps answer these questions by uncovering the stories behind place names - using data from OpenStreetMap and Wikidata.

🏷 The Etymology Tag in OpenStreetMap

The OpenStreetMap (OSM) project includes an 'etymology' tag that allows users to specify the origin or meaning of a place name. There’s also a related tag, 'etymology:wikidata', which links a feature’s name to a specific Wikidata entity. These tags are used by the Open Etymology Map to reveal the origins of local place names.

🗺 What Is the Open Etymology Map?

The Open Etymology Map is an interactive tool that showcases place names tagged with etymology data in OpenStreetMap. Using the map, you can zoom into any area and view features - streets, neighborhoods, towns - that have an etymology tag. You can then click on any of the highlighted features to learn more about where its name comes from.

For example, in London, if you click on Trafalgar Square, you’ll see a link to the Wikipedia entry for the Battle of Trafalgar, offering insight into the origins of one of the city's most iconic names.

The Open Etymology Map provides a fascinating, crowdsourced window into the history of our streets, offering a glimpse into the meanings behind the names we often take for granted. 

Unfortunately, the etymology tag is still rarely used in OpenStreetMap, which means there are currently large gaps in the Open Etymology Map’s coverage. The good news? You can help fill in those gaps. To contribute, simply research the origins of place names in your neighborhood and add an etymology tag to OpenStreetMap using an OSM editor like  iD.

The Anti-MAGA Protest Mapper

The Protest Mapper is a digital mapping tool designed to help journalists and community members contextualize local protests by visualizing them alongside broader regional or national trends. Using the tool, anyone can quickly create an embeddable, interactive map that displays all local protests occurring within a defined time period.

Created by Rahul Bhargava, a journalism professor at Northeastern University, this tool serves as a practical resource for embedding updated, interactive protest maps into news stories, blog posts, and community websites.

What It Is

Protest Mapper is a free, embeddable, browser-based tool that allows users to generate maps of recent protests within customizable geographic ranges (from 5 to 100 miles). The tool relies on two well-respected data sources: the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED), which updates weekly, and the Crowd Counting Consortium (CCC), updated monthly. Users can choose between these datasets when generating their maps. Each protest event is marked by a pin that, when clicked, reveals a short summary of the demonstration.

How It Works

The Protest Mapper is designed to be simple and journalist-friendly and modeled after the workflow used in the popular DataWrapper. Users can input a location and select a time range to generate a map of protests, which is then exportable as either an embeddable iframe or a static image (.png). The map itself is lightweight - built with Svelte and hosted on GitHub Pages to keep it sustainable and low-cost. 

A Panorama of Victorian London

The city of London has inspired many beautiful panoramic maps over the centuries, each lovingly crafted by talented artists. Interestingly, these panoramas almost always share a common perspective - north from the south side of the River Thames. This same viewpoint is used in Frederick James Smyth’s 1844 Panorama of London.

Exeter University’s Digital Humanities Lab has created an interactive guided tour of Smyth’s Panorama of London. Using Knight Lab’s StoryMap.js platform, the project offers a rich, navigable journey through 19th-century London as captured in one of the era’s most visually striking urban illustrations.

Originally commissioned by the Illustrated London News and first published in 1845, Smyth’s panorama is a remarkable feat of Victorian printmaking. Stretching over eight feet in length, it presents a detailed bird’s-eye view of the city from a south-of-the-Thames vantage point.

Exeter University’s story-map guides viewers through some of 1844 London’s most prominent landmarks. These include long-lost sites such as Millbank Penitentiary (where convicts were held before deportation to Australia) and the Hungerford Suspension Bridge. It also features familiar icons that remain central to the city today, including St. Paul’s Cathedral, the Houses of Parliament, and Buckingham Palace, to name just a few.

More vintage panoramas of London:

1543 - The Wyngaerde Panorama
1616 - Claes Jansz Visscher's Panorama (1848 copy)
1829 - View of London from the Adelphi

Europe in Drought

Spring 2025 has been exceptionally dry in Europe, with nearly every country affected by drought. To help monitor the increasing threat of drought due to global heating, the European Environment Agency (EEA) has launched a new interactive drought map. Updated monthly, the tool provides near real-time insights into drought conditions across the EEA’s 38 member and cooperating countries.

The Drought Conditions Map currently shows that around 38% of the mapped area experienced drought between 11–20 April 2025. It highlights severe impacts across much of northern and eastern Europe during April. An accompanying pie chart reveals that 15% of European cropland was exposed to drought in the same period.

The map features multiple data layers, allowing users to track drought effects across different ecosystem types, including cropland, grassland, heathland, wetland, and urban areas in the 38 countries covered.

The European Drought Observatory (EDO) map includes the UK in its assessment of European drought conditions, where extremely dry weather is also being observed. The latest data reflects conditions from the last ten days of April 2025.

Currently, 31.3% of the monitored area is under ‘Warning’ status. The EDO cautions that if these conditions continue, impacts on vegetation are likely to become apparent in the coming months. Many European rivers are already reporting abnormally low water levels, raising concerns for ecosystems and water supplies.

Mapping Your Future Climate Risks

The Natural Hazards Index Map, developed by climate experts at Columbia University’s National Center for Disaster Preparedness, is a new interactive map that visualizes how and where climate change is increasing risks from natural disasters across the U.S.

What Hazards Does It Show?

The map focuses on 14 different types of natural hazards, with a special focus on those getting worse due to climate change. Some of the main ones include:

• Wildfires
  Example: San Diego and Yakima County in Washington are expected to see a much higher risk of wildfires. Even areas like the Dakotas, which don’t see many fires today, may see more in the future.

• Tornadoes
  Tornado activity is shifting eastward, away from the traditional Tornado Alley and toward the East Coast.

• Flooding and Sea Level Rise
  As some areas receive more rainfall, the flood risk will rise, especially in places like Louisiana.

• Extreme Heat, Hurricanes, and Tropical Storms
  These threats are also expected to worsen as global temperatures climb.

Unlike traditional hazard maps, this tool doesn’t just display current risks, it forecasts future changes, helping agencies and policymakers plan long-term resilience strategies. The platform also includes a resources page with links to preparedness guides, making it a practical tool for community safety planning.

The 2024 Sea-Level Rise Map

The 2024 U.S. Sea Level Report Cards from the Virginia Institute of Marine Science (VIMS) reveal that Gulf Coast states, particularly Louisiana and Texas, continue to experience some of the fastest rates of sea-level rise in the country.

Published annually, the VIMS sea-level report uses observed tide gauge data to track sea-level trends across the United States and project future changes based on this long-term record. This year’s edition debuts a sleek, user-friendly interactive map that compiles data from 35 coastal communities, offering localized insights and projections through 2050.

A key finding in this year’s report is the accelerated sea-level rise now being observed in the southeastern U.S., including Georgia and South Carolina. Along the East Coast, sea levels are rising steadily, driven in part by meltwater redistribution from the Greenland ice sheet. Meanwhile, much of the West Coast has shown unexpected stability, defying earlier predictions.

The VIMS dashboard is grounded in over 55 years of tide-gauge measurements from locations stretching from Alaska to Florida. This long-term dataset allows for precise tracking of both historical trends and accelerating rates of sea-level change at each site.

Each report card includes monthly sea level averages, notes short-term anomalies like storm surges, and incorporates longer-term climate influences such as El Niño. Importantly, the projections factor in observed acceleration and compare future water levels under both linear and accelerating scenarios, providing a range of possibilities within a 95% confidence interval to aid coastal planning and risk management. 

You can explore sea-level rise projections for other countries (as well as additional regions within the United States) using the Climate Change Sea-Level Map. Climate Risk’s Coastal Risk Map also lets you assess your flood risk based on projected sea-level rise, coastal flooding, elevation, and specific timeframes. By sharing your location with the map, you can view potential flood risks for different years and sea-level scenarios.

The W3W Cryptic GeoGuessing Game

Pin the Tale

Pin the Tale is an interactive storytelling game that uses the What3Words geolocation system as its foundation. Webcurios describes Pin the Tale as “a combination of cryptic crosswords and Geoguessr,” while the creators themselves call it a "treasure hunt."

For those unfamiliar, What3Words is a geolocation addressing system that divides the entire world into a grid of 3 meter by 3 meter squares, assigning each square a unique combination of three random words. Pin the Tale uses these three words as prompts for location-based stories. From these stories, other players must try to work out the exact 3x3 meter square being described, using the clues embedded in the story.

🎮 How to Play Pin the Tale

1. Explore the Map 

• Open the Pin the Tale map. 
• Zoom into any location to view stories that users have submitted. 
• Each story corresponds to a unique 3-word address (a specific 3x3m square). 

2. Read & Discover Stories 

• Click on a story to read it. 
• Try to figure out the exact location it’s describing. 
• Once you think you know the spot, enter the corresponding What3Words address in the answer box to see if you’re correct. 
• Think of it as a geographical treasure hunt. 

3. Create Your Own Story 

• Choose a location on the map. 
• Look up its What3Words address (for example, ///apple.tiger.chair). 
• Write a short story inspired by that place, incorporating those three words into the story. 
• Submit it for others to discover and solve. 

Pin the Tale is far more difficult to describe than it is to play. My advice is to just dive in, search for your nearest clues, and try to see if you can solve them.

The Marine Migration Map

tracked migrations of the Green Turtle

Migratory Connectivity in the Ocean (MiCO) is an interactive map visualizing the global migrations of more than 100 species of birds, mammals, turtles and fish. The aim of the map is to bring together knowledge about the migratory routes and connected habitats of marine species, such as marine mammals, seabirds, sea turtles, and fish, in order to help support global conservation efforts.

The MiCO map was compiled by synthesizing decades of animal movement data from over 1,300 scientific studies published between 1990 and 2017. To create the map researchers compiled satellite tracking data from 109 migratory marine species, including seabirds, whales, sea turtles, and fish, collected through animal-borne tags that record and transmit migration routes. These tracking studies, conducted by universities, government agencies, and conservation organizations, have now been aggregated, standardized, and mapped to show key habitats and migratory pathways. 

By bringing together data from over 100 species and 100 studies, MiCO highlights critical corridors and habitats that multiple migratory animals rely on, helping policymakers and conservationists prioritize protection in key areas, especially in international waters where governance is fragmented. It is hoped that MiCO can help foster cross-jurisdictional collaboration, support data-driven policy decisions, and help prioritize conservation actions in both national waters and international seas, where migratory species are most vulnerable yet least protected.

Explore more migratory journey maps through the animal tracking tag