Visualizing the trans-Atlantic slave trade in two minutes

A timelapse mapping more than 30,000 Transatlantic slave ship voyages

Roughly 12 million people from Africa were forcibly moved to North and South America over two centuries. This map meticulously showcases every ship's origin, destination, timeline, and more, revealing the scale of the Transatlantic slave trade.

Trans-Atlantic and intra-American slavery: a visual database

This interactive database provides insight into the trading of enslaved Africans across the Atlantic. This database offers maps, articles, timelapses, videos of 3D slave ship models, and searchable databases on enslavers and the enslaved. According...

Mapping the known ports involved in the trans-Atlantic slave trade

Based on historical logs, this interactive maps shows info from various ports of departure and arrival during the height of the trans-Atlantic slave trade.

The trans-Atlantic slave trade brought over 10 million enslaved people to the Americas.

A map of slavery's spread across the US

Need a visual on how prevalent slavery was in the US? Scroll through this interactive map and timeline based on census data from 1790 to 1860.

Nineteenth-century, hand-drawn infographics on US slavery and race

In the second half of the 19th century, researchers studying the behavior of the millions of emancipated Americans after the Civil War used "information graphics" to cut through the noise of racially charged debate. In this collection from Stanford, you can see century-old, stunningly hand-drawn data visualizations showing racial demographics, the effects of emancipation on cotton prices, and more.

See a data visualization of the East India Company's trade

This tool visualizes the East India Company’s trade from 1760 to 1834, letting you track shipments of tea, textiles, metals, and more. Users can sort by commodity, origin, destination, and date to see London’s vast imperial supply network that shaped the British Empire.

Slavery in the US: a timeline

In 1619, a ship with 20 captives landed at Point Comfort in Virginia, ushering in the era of American slavery. Scroll through this timeline to learn more about slavery in the US and its long lasting effects.

Visualize the global Venezuelan diaspora

This visualization maps Venezuela’s mass diaspora, showing how millions have fled abroad—primarily to Latin America, with significant flows to the US and Europe—creating one of the most significant displacement crises in the world.

Visualizing the world's food supply chains

The world's food supply chain is complex and lopsided, with much of the world's nutrient-rich food ending up in Europe and North America. This visualization illustrates the paths our food takes around the world, from starchy vegetables in...

The history of the British Empire—all in a single take

This video delivers a rapid, rhyming walk-through of the British Empire—filmed in one continuous shot aboard a sailing ship and featuring costumed actors portraying figures from Sir Francis Drake to Pocahontas.

Mapping the route options between the Pacific and Atlantic

This map shows some of the alternative trade route options that are available to shipping companies, from overland routes that rely on railways to transport goods coast-to-coast, to Arctic Ocean passages.

See a timeline of colonial settlement in North America.

See the real-time numbers of ships traversing the canal each day

This platform uses satellite data to track chokepoints and trade disruptions along the shipping lanes that crisscross the globe. Search for data from more than 1,600 ports, or run the climate scenario simulator.

View animated battle maps from every major skirmish of the American Civil War.

Visualize every day of the American Civil War, in which fighting took place in a majority of the country.

Interactive human migration map

Using archeological, genetic, and climate data, scientists have pieced together an outline of the human odyssey—the journey that took our species from Africa to all corners of the globe. Experience this 200,000-year migration using an interactive human migration map.

Charting 4,000 years of human history

Care to hang all of human history on your wall? This data visualization charts 4,000 years of humanity. This "histomap" was originally published in 1931 and sold for $1 per copy of the 5-foot-long chart. It was said to detail the course of...

Here's how humans migrated across the world

From our deepest origins in Africa all the way to the Americas, by looking at the fossils and archaeological materials we have been able to trace the path our ancestors took during thee short window of time when we took over the world.

The American cockroach is actually from Africa—an apparent hitchhiker aboard ships carrying enslaved people—with evidence suggesting it may have arrived in the New World as early as the 1600s.

A map of global drug trafficking

The worldwide illegal drug trade continues to flourish. Accounting for almost 1% of the world’s financial revenue, the cocaine trade alone boasts an annual turnover of an estimated $85 billion. This infographic, from Around the World: An Atlas for...

Visualize population densities around the world represented as geographic terrain and how those densities changed from 1900 to 1975 to 2015.

Trace the rise of oil: from early drilling to today’s global power

This animated map video vividly illustrates how petroleum shaped global politics and industry—from 18th-century uses and 19th-century drilling booms in North America to today’s OPEC strategies, shale revolution, and geopolitical oil influence.

A British Airways pilot mapped every flight of his career into a data art series

James Harding logged every flight he had flown in a software program and rendered the results into 3D globe animations, charts, graphs, and more. You can view the visualizations here, along with career stat breakdowns and a description of his project.

Watch the British Empire expand and recede over 5 centuries

This interactive map traces the British Empire from 1450 to today—showing its explosive 19th-century expansion to one-quarter of the world's land and its steady contraction after World War II.

Markers along the Underground Railroad

An interactive map of all National Park Service designated sites that were part of the Underground Railroad, helping shuttle escaped enslaved people to freedom.

The transatlantic cable allowed for communications between North America and Europe

It had significant impacts on just about every industry, including finance. Specifically, the transatlantic cable made it so that real-time financial transactions could take place across the Atlantic, and allowed for much faster sharing of information that increased global market accuracy.

European colonization contributed to coffee's spread

European colonization created channels for large-scale coffee exports with workforces based in Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean. Trade routes throughout the Middle East and the rest of the world carried the drink to new shores and changed the agricultural and economic landscapes of the countries in the Bean Belt.

Hamilton learned about global trade before he was a teenager

Before he moved to America, Hamilton worked as a clerk around age 12 at the Caribbean trading firm Beekman and Cruger, handling shipping documents, inspections, and port logistics. He eventually managed the day-to-day operations of a trading charter that immersed him early in Atlantic commerce.

The history of coffee

From its likely origins in what is now Ethiopia to today's worldwide consumption, this video uses a map to show how coffee conquered the world. Follow along and see how pilgrimages and centuries of trade influenced the spread of the beverage we all know so well.

Explore an interactive timeline of technological inventions and social structures since 1500.

An eye-opening interactive journey into the global drug trade

POPPY Interactive reveals how drug money destabilizes entire countries, fuels global conflicts, and allows a worldwide illegal economy to grow. Navigating the site involves diving into three major routes—the Northern Route, the Balkan Route, and...

Watch the many different civilizations around the Mediterranean shift power from the year 2500 BCE to 0 BCE in this animated map.

One in five 16th century Spanish ships sank while crossing the Atlantic

Despite the incredibly high rate of catastrophic wrecks, during the Age of Exploration Spanish investors continued to fund voyages. Here, economists break down the incentives that led to increased risk, including short travel seasons and the propensity to overload ships.

European powers carved up nearly all of Africa in just 4 decades

This video explains the "Scramble for Africa," when seven European nations seized over 90% of the continent between 1870 and 1910. Only Liberia and Ethiopia remained sovereign as imperial competition redrew Africa’s borders and reshaped its future.

How long it takes to travel by train from various cities

This interactive allows users to see how long it would take to move from one city to another in Europe via trains.

An animation illustrating the enormity of the universe

Look around you. Where are you? Where is this place you are occupying? Somewhere in a room, maybe in a city on a continent on a planet orbiting a star in a galaxy among billions. But… where is all of that?

That time British slavers killed enslaved people and filed for insurance reimbursement

In 1781, a British slave ship tossed 132 enslaved Africans overboard, leaving them to drown. This 52-minute podcast explores the context behind the massacre and its implications. The slavers of the ship named Zong sought insurance reimbursement for...

Visualizing the enormity of plastic waste compared to global landmarks

The team at Reuters Graphics visualizes the world’s addiction to plastic bottles. Around the world, almost 1 million plastic bottles are purchased every minute. The illustrations included in this visual explainer show what that pile of plastic would look like if it was collected over longer periods of time and how large the piles would be compared to famous landmarks.

Coffee production took off in the 1800s

Coffee production in South America took off in the 1800s, with Brazil establishing itself as the largest global producer in the 1840s. Today, the country grows over one-third of the world's beans and consistently leads in global coffee production, with other Latin American countries like Colombia and Guatemala.

A visual summary of WWI

This animated video summarizes the "Great War"—World War I—tracing its progression through Europe, detailing the rise of nationalism in the middle of the 19th century until the signing of the peace treaties after 1918. This 18-minute provides a year-to-year accounting of the war with various helpful insights along the way.

Learn how Mexico’s anti-slavery stance shaped the US–Texas conflict

Historian Alice Baumgartner explores how Mexico’s abolition of slavery clashed with Anglo settlers' ambitions in Texas. The episode reveals how enslaved people fled south to freedom, reshaping the politics that led to Texas independence and the Mexican-American War.

Visualizing New York City's public transportation commutes

New York City is one of the largest cities in the world, and transports one of the largest numbers of commuters on a daily basis. This data visualization tells the stories of those commuters, showing the varying volume of travelers throughout the week and day, where they are going, and maps of high-traffic areas like stadiums and midtown. Dive into the data here.

Explore a map of global native lands

This interactive map visualizes Indigenous territories across the world. Users can search by location, language, or tribe to explore the histories, cultures, and present-day communities connected to specific lands.

Explore an interactive map of battles from the American Revolution, along with detailed summaries of each engagement.

The southbound Underground Railroad: finding freedom in Mexico

Until recently, the southbound Underground Railroad, as some scholars call it, has been largely overlooked, mainly because it left so few traces in surviving records. Read this article to learn more about this dangerous path and its travelers.

A podcast detailing the drug markets of East and Southern Africa

The African continent plays a critical role in the global illicit drug market. Often forgotten when discussing drug trafficking, organized criminal networks in Africa have established relationships with other criminal organizations around the world....

Enslaved and in debt: the French roots of Haiti's struggles

This investigative infographic details how Haiti was forced to pay for its freedom twice: once in blood and once in cash. In August 1791, Haiti's enslaved population launched a revolt against French colonists, successfully establishing Haiti as a...

Visualize a model of all of time, where our lives span less than the width of a human hair

The massive model was built across a Mojave Desert lake bed using 800 lights spaced just 10 meters apart. Within the model, the entirety of human civilization appears only in the final centimeter.

Some colonies were centuries-old before they broke from Britain

The revolution did not happen overnight, but was a culmination of centuries of settlement, policies, and war in North America. This timeline provides key, fascinating events from the 1600s through the Revolution in a smooth, easy-to-read interface.