A confluence of factors -- including concentrated wealth searching for investment outlets and rising interest rates -- is leading to a growing proportion of single-family homes in the U.S. being purchased for cash and turned into rental housing. This map takes as a case study a middle-class neighborhood in Charlotte, NC. (Map from  www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/09/16/realestate/home-sales-north-carolina-wall-street.html.)

Fast forward to 2050: this geo-graphic from Statista looks at the anticipated number of retirees per 100 working people, in selected countries, in 2020 vs. 2050.  Numbers in 2050 range from 40.4 retirees per 100 working people in the U.S. to 80.7 (!) retirees per 100 working people in Japan.  The length of the bar highlights the change in value from 2020 to 2050.  www.statista.com/chart/30831/evolution-of-the-number-of-retirees-per-100-working-people

This geo-graphic from Statista, based on UN data, shows how patterns in human migration have changed over the last 20 years: www.statista.com/chart/30815/top-destination-countries-for-international-migrants

This satellite image, from Al Jazeera, shows the location of the two dams on the Wadi Derna in far northeastern Libya that collapsed earlier this week following unusually heavy rains. The dams were built in the 1970s by a Yugoslavian company as part of a project to provide reservoirs and an irrigation network for communities in the region. Although Libya is not considered especially vulnerable to climate change, Notre Dame's Global Adaptation Initiative had previously flagged Libya's dam capacity as a significant vulnerability. www.aljazeera.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/INTERACTIVE-Libya-Derna-floods-Storm-Daniel-1694506930.png

If your state doesn't produce enough doctors to meet demand, where are the doctors in your state most likely from?  This map, based on U.S. Census data, answers that question. (Map from www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/08/18/states-most-artists-writers/.)

Most people are familiar with the concept of life expectancy. Less familiar are the many variants on life expectancy, including "healthy life expectancy" (HALE), which is defined by the World Health Organization as the "average number of years that a person can expect to live in 'full health' by taking into account years lived in less than full health due to disease and/or injury." This map shows the countries with the largest gap between life expectancy and healthy life expectancy -- or, thought of another way, with the most years of unhealthy old age -- as of 2019. The U.S. tops the list, with a gap of 12.4 years, followed by Australia, at 12.1 years. Completing the top 10 are New Zealand, the UK, Norway, Spain and Italy (tied), Iran, and Canada, Kuwait, and Switzerland (tied).

Which states produce the most physicians per capita? According to the Census Bureau, as shown on this map, the District of Columbia, New York, and Utah have produced the most people employed as physicians over the last 10 years. (Map from www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/08/18/states-most-artists-writers/.)

Crash Map maps fatal car crashes across the contiguous U.S. by state, by county, and by date. In many states, August is among the worst months for fatal car crashes. nextbase.com/crash-map

The 2023 Global Terrorism Index has been released, showing that Sub-Saharan Africa, particularly the Sahel, has become the global hotspot for terrorism, with the Sahel now accounting for 43% of all deaths due to terrorism.  The U.S. is still #30 on the list, just behind Benin and Sri Lanka, but in 2022 recorded the fewest attacks classified as terrorism since 2012. www.visionofhumanity.org/maps/global-terrorism-index/#/

This series of maps and images compares current vistas around the world with images predicting how those same vistas might change based on a 1.5°C increase in global temperatures and a 3°C increase in global temperatures: picturing.climatecentral.org/

If the runaway success of Barbie has left you craving more pink in your life, Conde Nast Traveler has picked out the world's most beautiful pink places, from Florida to Jaipur to Spain to Vietnam to Scotland: www.cntraveler.com/gallery/the-most-beautiful-pink-places-to-visit-around-the-world

This map was made by showing all of the domestic flights within each country: comparemyjet.com/domestic-flights-only/

Facing ongoing drought conditions, Spain is one of several countries looking to resurrect water-delivery systems hundreds or thousands of years old. This article is about Spain's acequias system, an extensive network of canals originally built by the Moors to deliver water from the mountains to communities across southern Spain. www.nytimes.com/2023/07/19/world/europe/spain-drought-acequias.html

With donors on vacation, blood supplies tend to dip in the summer. This map shows the statistically dominant blood type in each country: cdn.statcdn.com/Infographic/images/normal/28156.jpeg

Students who have taken my "Your Future World: Human Geography 2050" class will be familiar with the demographic shifts highlighted in this graphic, based on UN data and forecasts, that will shape the world in which they live. www.statista.com/chart/29853/the-worlds-most-populous-countries-since-1950 (I expect to teach "Your Future World" online for the first time in Spring 2024.)

The U.S. "electricity grid" is not a single entity: as this map shows, the bulk of the national grid is actually three almost entirely unconnected regional grids operated by a patchwork of different operators. The maps in this article from the New York Times illustrate the fragmentation of the U.S. electricity grid. (Map from www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/06/12/climate/us-electric-grid-energy-transition.html)

The hot new idea in hydropower is not damming rivers to turn turbines; it is pumped storage or closed-loop hydropower: moving the same water repeatedly between an upper and lower reservoir, depending on electricity demand. Pumped storage does not depend on access to a major river. This website from the International Hydropower Association explains the process and includes an interactive map showing the status of hydropower projects around the world: www.hydropower.org/hydropower-pumped-storage-tool

Iran has executed at least 307 people so far this year, including 142 in May alone, a 76% increase over last year. According to Amnesty International, only China executes more prisoners than Iran. This map from Statista looks at the status of the death penalty globally: www.statista.com/chart/25211/death-penalty-world-map/

This map looks at the 2nd largest nationality living in each European country. Deciphering it may be an opportunity for some flag research, though :-). brilliantmaps.com/2nd-largest-nationality/

On Sunday, Türkiye (Turkey) will be holding its presidential election, and the Kurdish vote is likely to play a significant role. This map, which redraws current borders in the Middle East based primarily on dominant nationality, hints at the geographic extent of the Kurdish population in Türkiye and in neighboring countries. brilliantmaps.com/new-middle-east/

Although it's been widely reported that India will overtake China as the world's most populous country at some point this year, what has received less attention are the divergent trends in fertility rates within India: the birth rate in northern India is nearly twice that of southern India. In southern India, the total fertility rate is 1.8 children per woman, on a par with the U.S. and most of Europe. In northern India, the total fertility rate is about 3 children per woman, on a par with Namibia and Libya, among other countries. "Not only are southern [Indian] states providing women better access to contraceptives and family planning services, experts say, but they’re also affording women better educations, more jobs and higher relative social status — crucial, intangible factors that have led to smaller family sizes and greater prosperity. 'Demographically, we have two Indias,' said Arvind Subramanian, the Indian government’s chief economic adviser between 2014 and 2018. 'The India of the south already resembles East Asia. It’s actually in the early stages of aging. But the Hindi heartland is still very much booming.' ... The north-south gap in birthrates and overall development is stirring frequent debates about how to apportion federal spending and how to allocate seats in Parliament. It’s also sparked efforts by government leaders and development experts to provide enough jobs to the poor, northern states — and lift up women like Malika [a woman profiled in the story from the northern state of Bihar], who are left behind even as India’s surging economy looks destined to overtake Germany’s later this decade. ... According to the 2021 national family survey, 84 percent of Tamil Nadu women are now literate, compared with 55 percent in Bihar, the lowest in India. Forty-six percent of married women in Tamil Nadu were employed in the last 12 months, versus 19.2 percent of married Bihari women. ... Increasingly, India’s failure to close its north-south demographic and economic divide is leading to political consequences. In Bihar, the pressure on public-sector employment is so great that cuts to government job openings or in military recruitment often spark riots. Meanwhile, southern states such as Tamil Nadu, which is expecting to see its population decline sometime in the next decade, has seen an influx of northern migrant laborers, occasionally leading to friction."
www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/04/14/india-china-population-most-populous/

Three years after the beginning of COVID shutdowns, the downtown areas of many major U.S. cities remain a shadow of their former selves. One way of measuring downtown life is looking at cellphone activity. This geo-graphic from Statista looks at research comparing cell phone activity in 2019 with that of Fall 2022 in select North American cities. Emptiest cities? San Francisco, Cleveland, and Portland. www.statista.com/chart/29722/cellphone-activity-in-north-american-downtowns  (For full results, see downtownrecovery.com/dashboards/recovery_ranking.html.)

Where are people most interested in the metaverse?  Based on Google searches of the term "metaverse" per 1,000 people, people in the Philippines show, by far, the most interest in the metaverse, followed by Granada, Peru, Barbados, Lithuania, Estonia, and Latvia. (Map from CoinKickoff.com.) coinkickoff.com/wp-content/uploads/01_The-Meta-Verdict_World-Map.png

Just 29 countries (shown in yellow) contribute more than half of the world's maternal deaths, newborn deaths, and stillbirths: reliefweb.int/map/world/map-2023-countries-un-humanitarian-appeals-contribute-global-maternal-deaths-newborn-death-and-stillbirths

Landmines often persist long after a conflict ends. This map, based on data from an NGO that monitors landmines and operations to clear them, shows where landmines still exist, more than 25 years after a UN treaty that bans their use: cdn.statcdn.com/Infographic/images/normal/26209.jpeg