June 11, 2016 This nighttime map of the Middle East, stretching from Egypt to Iran and from the Red Sea to the tip of the Arabian Peninsula, was taken by a NASA satellite in 2012. It is fairly up-to-date given that electricity use and population don’t expand very quickly.
The most striking part of this map is Egypt. It has the most intense lighting in the region in an area in the north stretching from Alexandria to the Suez Canal, and then following the Nile River south to the Aswan Dam. The dam delivers much of Egypt’s electricity but also limits population growth to its south. It has become the southern limit of populated Egypt.
This area of intense light represents the real Egypt. Its political boundaries are far to the west and south, but that area is minimally populated and far from developed. In looking at this map, Egypt is actually a narrow country following the Nile because it is intensely populated in that area. The lights also indicate the degree of infrastructure development. Whatever problems Egypt has, and it has many, it has managed to bring electricity to the populated regions.
June 4, 2016 European powers strongly shaped the geopolitics of contemporary sub-Saharan Africa. In the colonial era, they saw sub-Saharan Africa as a means to an end, initially encountering the continent as they looked for sea trading routes to India and East Asia. France, Great Britain, Portugal, Germany and Belgium had the largest presence.
From the 16th century through the 18th century, major European governments established ports to support long voyages to the East Indies. When we look at the location of former colonies, we can observe how each location served as a resting and refueling point in the long journey east.
Canada is one of those countries where a vast land mass obscures the fact that the country has a relatively small population. While Canada is the second largest country in the world, its 35 million inhabitants make Canada only the 39th most populated country.
May 21, 2016 Chinese civilization is one of the world’s oldest. Communities began to form on the Yellow and Yangtze rivers thousands of years ago. By 2,000 B.C., dynasties had emerged and lasted in various forms until the Qing were deposed in 1912. The People’s Republic of China is the heir to this long history, and as is often the case, understanding China’s past is a crucial part of forecasting China’s future.
Although China’s history is long and complex, the story of China’s rise is essentially two stories that repeat themselves over and over again. China is incredibly diverse in terms of the cultures and languages that have developed within its modern-day borders. Despite this diversity, there have been periods when a ruler emerged who was strong enough to unite the disparate parts of the country. These dynasties may rule for hundreds of years, only for China’s internal divisions to reassert themselves and cause fragmentation and regionalization.
May 17, 2016 This map looks at the world from Russia’s point of view. Sometimes the most powerful graphics are not those with special effects or provocative statistics, but rather are those that change your perspective. This is one such map.
The days of the Soviet Union are over and are not about to return. The U.S. is the world’s most powerful country, and unlike during the days of the Cold War, it has no peer. Russia, however, is still a formidable regional power, one that has made headlines in recent years for its military actions in Georgia, Ukraine and Syria. Much of the coverage you’ll read about Russia centers on President Vladimir Putin – his skill as a leader and the extent to which many Russians love and admire their leader and their country.
May 11, 2016 This is a map of the United States at night. As you can see, the eastern part of the United States is filled with lights, and the western part is much darker, except for the Pacific Coast. The line we’ve drawn marks the point where the lights dim. And it also marks the line where annual rainfall tapers off. There is more rain to the east of the line, less rain to the west. The line marking the edge of the heavily lit area is also the point where rain declines below what is needed for high density populations. The two lines converge in the same spot and define a vital dimension of American geopolitics: the difference between the East and the West.
May 3, 2016 This map is designed to show some of the hidden fault lines underlying the states of the Middle East, and the reasons these states, which were held together by foreign powers and domestic tyrants, disintegrated.
The Ottoman Empire lasted for about six centuries before it collapsed after World War I. Towards the waning years of the 17th century, its forces had penetrated as far west as Vienna. Its power and reach were enormous and enduring. The green areas of the map show what remained of the empire in the mid-19th century, after it was long past its prime. Its power had declined, but the extent of its rule, even in decline, bound together a region reaching from the Balkans to the Arabian Peninsula and to a large part of North Africa.
April 26, 2016 There is widespread interest in the rising tensions over the waters east of China. China has become increasingly assertive in the region, and regional powers from Japan to Singapore have become alarmed at China’s behavior. The Chinese recently built an island in the South China Sea, apparently as a potential airbase. The United States sent a carrier battle group there as well. For all the activity and discussion, it is not clear that people really understand what all this is about. This week’s map will help clarify the situation.
There are two seas to the east of China – the East China Sea to the north and the South China Sea to the south, with Taiwan positioned in between. Air and naval forces based in Taiwan are, at least in theory, able to prevent movement between the two seas. The Taiwan Strait is fairly narrow and movement by the Chinese to Taiwan’s east forces China to pass near the Philippines to the south, or through the Ryukyu Islands to the north. Passage through the Ryukyu Islands could be blocked by hostile naval forces or by land-based aircraft and missiles.
In this map, we are showing the most intense areas of light to capture the areas of the world that are most developed.
The map also identifies areas with high population density. It shows us the places that have both development and high population density. In looking at this map, for example, the American heartland is still east of the Mississippi. Canada in this sense is a thin strip of land north of the American border, which is understandable given that temperatures in much of Canada are extremely cold, making the area inhospitable for human settlement. If you draw maps based on the amount of lighting, massive countries like Canada and Australia become smaller and more compact…
April 12, 2016 South America is an island, connected to North America by a land bridge. We all know that. But South America is not a single entity. It is made up of smaller islands, divided not by the ocean, but by impassable jungles and mountains. The Amazon and the Andes create three islands. The eastern island consists of parts of Brazil, Argentina and Bolivia, as well as Paraguay and Uruguay. The second island is Venezuela and Colombia. The third is a long, thin island in the west, running from Ecuador through Peru and Chile.
If you have ever wondered why South America was never formed into a single entity like North America, or into transcontinental countries, think about the Amazon and the Andes. South America only looks like a single landmass. It is deeply divided by these barely passable barriers. In a real sense, the center of South America is a blank. A great deal of South American history can be explained by this.
April 6, 2016 This week’s graphic shows the geography of the Central Asian states, as well as the distribution of various ethnic groups. Centuries of invasions and foreign rule contributed to the emergence of weak states with deep internal vulnerabilities in Central Asia. We have discussed how Europeans, through the 1916 Sykes-Picot Agreement, created artificial borders in the Middle East, thus laying the groundwork for the disintegration of Syria and Iraq that we are seeing today. Central Asia’s modern-day borders were also drawn by outsiders, though in this case it was Soviet planners in the 1920s and 1930s. Today’s borders are thus not organic and do not strictly reflect ethnic or national divisions. About 23 percent of Kazakhstan’s population, for example, is made up of ethnic Russians. Ethnic Uzbeks make up about 14 percent of Kyrgyzstan’s population and over 13 percent of Tajikistan’s. Central Asia is thus a region where ethnic and regional tensions abound and threaten the unity of the modern states.
March 29, 2016 This week’s graphic shows the lights on the Korean Peninsula that are visible from space at night, which illustrates the cost of North Korea’s strategic irrationality. Rationally speaking, North Korea couldn’t possibly launch a nuclear strike. Therefore, it is critical for North Korea to appear irrational. South Korea, China and the U.S. understand North Korea well enough to endure its assertions of power and aggression without panicking. The regime appears resilient and in control. The result is a formula for stalemate… a stalemate of the indifferent. But the cost of this stalemate is the blackness of the North Korean night. The cost of maintaining the regime is a dramatic lack of economic development. Whatever wealth exists is diverted to maintaining the bluff, which in turn requires a delicate internal balance that demands not only massive repression but also, above all, isolation.
The Geopolitics of the American President