I found an interesting dataset from PRIO (the Peace Research Institute Oslo) that identifies the specific locations where armed conflicts were initiated in the second half of the Twentieth Century. Given the general decline of interstate wars following WWII, the vast majority of these conflicts are internal and feature an insurgent group contesting the central state power. You can read more about the data here.
To better understand the data I pulled together a quick visualization of the locations. Each is marked by a fire emoji and features a popup on click highlighting additional information about the conflict. You can also filter the data by years to get a better sense of the waves of conflict onset. Check out a live version on my website here.
At a high level, the map is initiated with a layer holding information for all of the conflicts. If a user selects the single year filter function then an animation begins advancing the years one-by-one (starting with 1946). When each year is shown in the info box the conflicts on the map are filtered to just that year. The code itself if pretty simple, with the bulk of the work done in this JavaScript file. I also added a spinning globe effect for visual pop.
Interesting links from around the web:
- defends focusing on loving the problem you’re solving, rather than focusing on the technology which solves it today.
Historical maps probably helped cause World War I
- post covering the influence of a (most likely fabricated) map of the battle of Cannae on German military strategy, as well as a brief discussion of irredentist mapping