The ability to slide on the data visualization goggles to filter, pivot, animate, and otherwise magically parse a phenomenon is a real wonder.
This StoryMap walks through the visual analysis of 30 years of nautical piracy through various cross-sections of the calendar. While I am not a marine security expert or global economist/sociologist/explorer, I do make maps for these sorts of people. The story map presents nautical piracy in place and time, which offers up all sorts of questions. Questions I don’t know the answer to; but maps don’t necessarily have to answer questions. Maps prompt new and more specific questions.
Here are a couple extracts from the StoryMap. First, a linear look at the past three decades…
And here is a seasonal cross-section of this era…
I hope you check it out and ask questions of your own. The data is sourced from the National Geospatial Intelligence agency, and is available as a feed here.
P.S. I write a lot of StoryMaps. If you’d like to see some of them you can find a selection here.