{"id":7014,"date":"2022-05-10T09:26:39","date_gmt":"2022-05-10T07:26:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.everviz.com\/blog\/?p=7014"},"modified":"2023-09-13T09:01:38","modified_gmt":"2023-09-13T09:01:38","slug":"similar-stories-different-maps-a-visual-narrative-of-the-war-in-ukraine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.everviz.com\/blog\/similar-stories-different-maps-a-visual-narrative-of-the-war-in-ukraine\/","title":{"rendered":"Similar Stories, Different Maps – A Visual Narrative of the War in Ukraine"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This is a guest blog post by Rebeca Pop, founder of Vizlogue<\/a>, a Data Visualization and Storytelling Lab that offers workshops and consulting services. You can find Rebeca on YouTube<\/a>, where she posts data visualization videos. Rebeca has been providing insights and creating data visualizations for almost 10 years. She has worked as a digital analytics leader for top media and analytics companies, and is teaching Data Visualization and Storytelling at the University of Chicago and at Northwestern University. Read more about Rebeca in her bio below.<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine at the end of February, media publications started sharing maps of Ukraine and its neighboring countries, as well as of the millions of refugees who were fleeing the war. As the war continued to develop, the story that media publications had to tell became increasingly more complex. A regular choropleth map and a point map were not sufficient anymore as they couldn\u2019t accurately depict the situation in Ukraine. As a result, we started seeing a lot of innovative thinking and new types of maps.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In this blog post, I\u2019ll select and discuss a few unique maps that I\u2019ve seen in the media since the end of February when Russia invaded Ukraine. But, before I do so, let\u2019s first take a step back to review how maps came to be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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A Short History of Maps<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Maps (or cartography) are one of the oldest types of data visualizations, which contributes to the fact that we tend to find them intuitive to read and understand. The history of maps can be traced back over 5,000 years ago. Early forms of maps were typically depicting small areas and were pictorial in nature. The Babylonian clay tablet map below depicts Babylon with the Euphrates River, mountains, and the ocean and is an excellent example of early maps.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Source: The British Museum<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Fast forward to the Middle Ages, maps progressed in the Islamic world faster than in Europe. One of the most known maps from the Middle Ages was created in 1154 by Al-Sharif al-Idrisi. This map depicts the world as a sphere, incorporates colors, and is overall more complex than the Babylonian maps.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Source: www.flickr.com\/photos\/royaloperahouse\/17133689640<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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With the invention of the printing press in 1440 in Europe, maps evolved at a fast pace and started being more similar to what they look like today. Equally important, maps became accessible to a large portion of the population as publishing houses produced maps that were not just for the wealthy elite. The map below was published in 1662 by Joan Blaeu. It was included in the book Atlas Maior<\/em>, containing 594 maps and around 3,000 pages of text. This world map shows two hemispheres, one overseen by Ptolemy and one by Copernicus, each with a very different view of the world and the solar system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\"Joan
Source: www.maps.nls.uk\/atlas\/blaeu-maior\/info.html<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Modern maps are more diverse and easier to create than ever before with tools such as everviz. Choropleth maps are particularly popular and versatile. They display geographical areas that are colored, typically based on ranges of a numeric value. Choropleth maps allow us to compare geographical areas and understand patterns. Below is an example of a choropleth map created in everviz that encodes data from Natural Earth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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