What is it?
The map allows you to see for every country X in the world either the
top ten
providing countries of lifetime migrants to X or the top ten receiving countries of lifetime migrants from
X. On
top of that, when you let your mouse hover over a country, you can see the total population, the GDP per capita,
the HIV and Tuberculosis prevalences and the death rate of children under five.
I (Martin De Wulf) have
been
programming this map to
learn
and have fun with HTML5 technologies. Besides of learning, my only goal is to create a
website that can make people think.
The data
The data for the map is coming from three sources:
-
The Global
Migrant Origin Database
is the main source of the data. As said on the site, it "consists of a 226x226 matrix of
origin-destination stocks by country and economy".
Put differently, this is a matrix showing for each pair of country X and Y "the number of persons born
in a country X and now living in
country Y." Globally, the map is only as good as this data is and it is quite clear, even for a non
specialist like me, that
obtaining accurate numbers on such a topic is really difficult: you have to use many different sources with
different
counting criteria, and for some countries, it would probably be better politically not to give the precise
numbers.
So, take the map with a grain of salt.
- For all the indicators (population size, GDP, HIV and tuberculosis prevalences and mortality for kids under five years old), I
used the World Bank API, with the numbers for 2007.
-
For the countries borders, I used a file found in the examples of the polymaps library, which
originated from thematicmapping.org
The Technology
All the code of the site and the scripts used to produce it are available on
github. Furthermore, the site is hosted on a github page. Thanks to them for this
fantastic free service.
There are probably some bugs lurking around. Do not hesitate to report them to me at: madewulf@gmail.com.
Here is a non exhaustive list of technologies or tools employed to create this map:
- Raphael.js for the display in SVG the countries borders, the "arrows" and animating everything;
- Color Brewer by Cynthia Brewer for the red hues used to display "migration intensity";
- the font Univers Else. I may have put it to bad use. I am not sure, I am not a type geek;
- Python with the Requests library
to transform all data in a format usable on this site and to access the World Bank API;
- Hasher.js for the url hashes manipulations (so that people can bookmark maps, or use their back button);
- Modernizr for detecting if the current browser supports geolocation;
- JQuery.
What's next?
If you liked the map, you might also like PopulationPyramid.net