Over the past 30 years, the Arctic has warmed at roughly twice the rate as the entire globe, a phenomenon known as Arctic amplification. Most scientists agree that this rapid warming is a signal of human-caused climate change.
Read more: The heating of Arctic as a mountain
British colonial shipping lanes covered vast expanses, connecting the British Isles to North America, the Caribbean, South Asia, and the Pacific. Spanish lanes were primarily transatlantic, centered on the Atlantic Ocean and Caribbean. French routes spanned the Atlantic, Indian, and Pacific Oceans, reaching North America, the Caribbean, Southeast Asia, and the South Pacific. Dutch shipping lanes had a global reach, including the Indian and Pacific Oceans, with a strong presence in Southeast Asia and the East Indies.
Read more: European Colonial Shipping Lanes
22 of 36 developed countries (61%) saw a decline in home ownership over the last 10 years. Today UK residents need at least two months’ average salary to purchase just one square meter of home.
Read more: Global map showing the ownership vs rental split rate
The road system of the U.S. surpasses four million miles in combined length, plus numerous public line roads (8.3 million miles), other service roads, and off-road driving trails.
Read more: Remoteness
The territory of each country is changing through times. Each state in the world has reached its territorial peak, which then ends.
Read more: Maps showing how many years each territory was ruled by the country
Due to the Coriolis effect, the dominant ocean currents in the North Atlantic move in a circle clockwise, delivering warm water from the Caribbean Sea to Europe, making Europe temperate instead of frozen like the same latitudes in North America. What would Earth look like if it rotated backward?
Read more: What Earth would look like if it rotated backward
Autumn foliage is a phenomenon that changes the green leaves of deciduous trees. By the end of October, yellow, orange, red, and brown varieties dominate, showing the coming of peak fall foliage in the western and northern U.S. When it comes to the end of November, all except the southern counties of the U.S. are past the peak point.
Read more: Autumn foliage colors mapped
For Akira fans, this map puts Neo-Tokyo’s big artificial islands right next to real Tokyo Bay from 2019. It points out land that’s been built up since 1988, and compares things like area, people, skyscrapers, and the day-to-day mess in the film versus the real place.
Read more: Mapping Akira’s Neo-Tokyo Against Real Tokyo Bay
In demographics, the center of population is a geographical spot representing a center point of the region’s population. On average, the point nearest to everyone on our planet is in the north of South Asia, with a mean distance of 5,000 kilometers or 3,000 miles.
Read more: Centre of the population for each country in the world
The average age of first marriage varies significantly from country to country. Cultural, social, and economic factors greatly determine when people choose to get married. In many Western nations, there has been a trend of people delaying marriage until later in life.
Read more: Average Age of First Marriage by Country Mapped
Many of the world’s cities will face sharply different climates by 2050. I tried to visualize how climate change will affect 6,000 world cities. London could feel as hot as Paris by 2050, with Paris’s climate more like San Francisco. San Francisco feels like Melbourne and New York City like Bologna (Italy). The climate of Moscow will be similar to that of Boston.
Read more: How hot cities could be in 2050
Languages have various levels of orthographic depth, which means that a language’s orthography can vary in a spectrum of a very irregular and difficult orthography (deep orthography) to a quite regular and simple one (shallow orthography).
Read more: Orthographic depth of different languages
Europe has seen a drop in the intentional homicide rate by 63% since 2002 and by 38% since 1990. Russia and Ukraine reported the highest number of intentional homicide victims per 100 000 inhabitants. The lowest number of intentional homicide victims was recorded in Norway, Italy, and Spain.
Read more: Intentional Homicide Rate in Europe