As some may know, I'm a bit of map man. Do I read my atlas with my morning cereal? Yes. Will I flip open a road atlas for some easy causal reading? You betcha! With that said, I'm introducing your map of the day.
From some European researches, via Fast Company, comes this nifty map that details how far you are from a city of at least 50,000 people. Needless to say, the farther a person is from "civilization" the darker an area--the closer, the brighter. As reported by the New Scientist:
Plotted onto a map, the results throw up surprises. First, less than 10% of the world's land is more than 48 hours of ground-based travel from the nearest city. What's more, many areas considered remote and inaccessible are not as far from civilization as you might think. In the Amazon, for example, extensive river networks and an increasing number of roads mean that only 20% of the land is more than two days from a city--around the same proportion as Canada's Quebec province.Mind melting.
Say, this is neat. :) I think I've seen something similar with satellite imagery and light pollution.
ReplyDeleteSomewhat related, I find it fascinating that in our lifetime the percentage of people who live in cities has surpassed the number of folks who live in the country.