I’ve always loved this image.
From the comments below the picture:
The image is a panoramic view of the world from the new space station….It is a night photo with the lights clearly indicating the populated areas. You can scroll East-West and North-South.
Note that Canada’s population is almost exclusively along the U.S. border.
Moving east to Europe, there is a high population concentration along the Mediterranean Coast. It’s easy to spot London, Paris, Stockholm and Vienna.
Note the Nile River and the rest of Africa. After the Nile, the lights don’t come on again until Johannesburg. Look at the Australian Outback and the Trans-Siberian Rail Route. Moving east, the most striking observation is the difference between North and South Korea. Note the density of Japan.
As humans, we’re in danger of scrambling far past the point of comfortable living, piling ourselves higher and higher in areas of the world that aren’t designed to be habitable by our species. We build out of bounds when we’re free to do so. When we can’t build out, we build up . We push everything out of our way in a new form of Manifest Destiny, slaughtering open space and murdering the untouched nature of the great outdoors.
But when you look at a picture like this, you realize how much of our world is uninhabited. Not because we haven’t made it there yet, but because Mother Earth has devised ways of keeping us out.
I could study this map all day. It shows the difference between populated and uninhabited, industrialized and third world, crowded and spacious.It tells so much about the world – about our patterns, about our needs and about our migration routes.
All without uttering a word. All illuminated by the gentle hum of electricity.
On this same note, look at this image that illustrates just how big Alaska is:
http://static.mmoabc.com/my//M/i/c/hael/2007/8/14/1187144170024.png
That’s crazy big, and it has less people that South Dakota (usually — it’s pretty close at any rate).
There is so, so, so much land up there. But, there’s a lot of land in Siberia too, and based on these pictures…
http://www.tutztutz.com/2008/03/russian-siberia-at-winter/
..I wouldn’t want to live there.
Also, about your comments about where people live in Canada –
I heard somewhere (can’t remember where, for the life of me) that the “elephant in the room” of the global warming debate is what a huge boon it would be for countries like Canada.
For every 1 degree the world temperature goes up, the “comfortably inhabitable zone” of Canada grows north another X miles.
The likely result of global warming is that humankind will be pushed away from the equator, which will become an arid, no mans land, incapable of supporting meaningful life.
Though it sounds cynical as hell, previously frozen regions like northern Canada, northern Russia, Greenland, etc. will start looking awfully attractive in 100 years.
I love the distinction between North and South Korea. Great illustration of the differences between socialism and capitalism.
@Deane – And Minnesota would become the vacationland it already should be. Although that’s a negative – I love that so few understand how beautiful northern Minnesota is.
Another fascinating look at the same picture, with the lights colored to show which ones are (1) city lights, (2) wildfires, (3) natural gas flares, and (4) fishing boat fleets.
http://incredimazing.com/page/Earth_at_Night-686
It’s odd — I never thought there we that many wildfires in Cuba. Or Africa. But it makes some sense in the later case — there are a lot of lights across a wide swath of central Africa, where I don’t think there are many cities.
The legend is in the lower left corner of the image.