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Interactive Map: The Flow of International Trade

97 points by digitaltrees 10y ago

Theodores 10y ago
This visualisation makes a point regarding 'Brexit'. Look how much trade the UK does with Europe and how much trade is done with the rest of the world. Even though everything says 'made in China' far, far more trade is done with Germany and the other large European nations.
chris_st 10y ago
Well, that's kind of pretty... but perhaps there's a better way to show individual good flows? I see a rainbow between the USA and Mexico, for example, but I can't really make out which colors are going where. Perhaps if each color had its own location on each country's map? This would add confusion, in that folks might thing the location is where the good comes from ("Why is wheat coming out of Virginia?"), but it would allow seeing that (say) Mexico exports "X" times more food to the USA than the other way around.
prewett 10y ago
I love the idea, and had no idea this data was available. However, the visualization is close to useless (except it looks good on news sites). I wanted to examine @Theodores comment about Brexit, but I can't even do something as simple as figuring out whether the UK is a net importer from / exporter to Europe (or approximately equal). It makes me want to play around with the data [1] myself, although getting all the data looks a bit involved. And it's not an easy visualization, either. Not only is there a geometry problem and a dimensional problem, it looks like countries might import from and export to the same country in the same type of good. In 2015 for "26 - Ores, slag, and ash", apparently the UK imported $187m from Canada and exported $155m to Canada. (But maybe the units are $1k, as the UK importing $2+ billion total seems a bit low?) Not only does that seem a little counter-intuitive--what ores is the UK even mining, let alone exporting? Anyway, representing both directions seems challenging. [1] https://comtrade.un.org/data/ https://comtrade.un.org/data/
- digitaltrees 10y ago
  Your idea is really interesting Let me know if you are able create something. It would be amazing to see in bound and out bound trade. I was struck by how integrated Canada, US and Mexico are at this point. Any thing you do to increase the detail and granularity of this visualization would be awesome.
- krona 10y ago
  The raw material(s) aspect can be deceptive because most of the ore that British (FTSE listed) mining companies produce doesn't touch British shores; I'm not sure how the visualization takes account of these details.
ben_jones 10y ago
It looks like the visualization was made with d3.js, can anyone explain how one may recreate something similar, or is it hand-rolled?
- vitohuang 10y ago
  Yeah, it does look like d3 animation, don't think it will be hand-rolled. Better approach will be combine d3 with reactive js like React/Vuejs for dynamic data This is a globe https://bl.ocks.org/mbostock/ba63c55dd2dbc3ab0127 https://bl.ocks.org/mbostock/ba63c55dd2dbc3ab0127 then just provide/change the data
- grzm 10y ago
  Looks like it's made using BlueShift. There's a link in the lower righthand corner of the graphic. https://blueshift.io https://blueshift.io Both the BlueShift examples and the graphic on this page are loading d3 as well, so it's likely BlueShift is building on d3 in some way.
lgleason 10y ago
From the map it looks like the US trade imbalance with China and the EU (imports more than it exports).
known 10y ago
Thank you; A picture is worth a thousand words;
LyalinDotCom 10y ago
I've seen this before but it still looks like an amazing visualization at least of the bigger picture
Nanite 10y ago
Looks cool but not doesn't provide much insight. I would highly recommend the Observatory of Economic Complexity. Unsexy 2d block visualizations but conveys relevant data very well: http://atlas.media.mit.edu/en/ http://atlas.media.mit.edu/en/

97 points by digitaltrees 10y ago

This visualisation makes a point regarding 'Brexit'. Look how much trade the UK does with Europe and how much trade is done with the rest of the world. Even though everything says 'made in China' far, far more trade is done with Germany and the other large European nations.

chris_st 10y ago

Well, that's kind of pretty... but perhaps there's a better way to show individual good flows? I see a rainbow between the USA and Mexico, for example, but I can't really make out which colors are going where. Perhaps if each color had its own location on each country's map? This would add confusion, in that folks might thing the location is where the good comes from ("Why is wheat coming out of Virginia?"), but it would allow seeing that (say) Mexico exports "X" times more food to the USA than the other way around.

prewett 10y ago

I love the idea, and had no idea this data was available. However, the visualization is close to useless (except it looks good on news sites). I wanted to examine @Theodores comment about Brexit, but I can't even do something as simple as figuring out whether the UK is a net importer from / exporter to Europe (or approximately equal). It makes me want to play around with the data [1] myself, although getting all the data looks a bit involved. And it's not an easy visualization, either. Not only is there a geometry problem and a dimensional problem, it looks like countries might import from and export to the same country in the same type of good. In 2015 for "26 - Ores, slag, and ash", apparently the UK imported $187m from Canada and exported $155m to Canada. (But maybe the units are $1k, as the UK importing $2+ billion total seems a bit low?) Not only does that seem a little counter-intuitive--what ores is the UK even mining, let alone exporting? Anyway, representing both directions seems challenging. [1] https://comtrade.un.org/data/ https://comtrade.un.org/data/

digitaltrees 10y ago
Your idea is really interesting Let me know if you are able create something. It would be amazing to see in bound and out bound trade. I was struck by how integrated Canada, US and Mexico are at this point. Any thing you do to increase the detail and granularity of this visualization would be awesome.
krona 10y ago
The raw material(s) aspect can be deceptive because most of the ore that British (FTSE listed) mining companies produce doesn't touch British shores; I'm not sure how the visualization takes account of these details.

ben_jones 10y ago

It looks like the visualization was made with d3.js, can anyone explain how one may recreate something similar, or is it hand-rolled?

vitohuang 10y ago
Yeah, it does look like d3 animation, don't think it will be hand-rolled. Better approach will be combine d3 with reactive js like React/Vuejs for dynamic data This is a globe https://bl.ocks.org/mbostock/ba63c55dd2dbc3ab0127 https://bl.ocks.org/mbostock/ba63c55dd2dbc3ab0127 then just provide/change the data
grzm 10y ago
Looks like it's made using BlueShift. There's a link in the lower righthand corner of the graphic. https://blueshift.io https://blueshift.io Both the BlueShift examples and the graphic on this page are loading d3 as well, so it's likely BlueShift is building on d3 in some way.

lgleason 10y ago

From the map it looks like the US trade imbalance with China and the EU (imports more than it exports).

known 10y ago

Thank you; A picture is worth a thousand words;

LyalinDotCom 10y ago

I've seen this before but it still looks like an amazing visualization at least of the bigger picture

Nanite 10y ago

Looks cool but not doesn't provide much insight. I would highly recommend the Observatory of Economic Complexity. Unsexy 2d block visualizations but conveys relevant data very well: http://atlas.media.mit.edu/en/ http://atlas.media.mit.edu/en/