Data Source: Uppsala Conflict Data Program

Tools Used: Blender, Python, Illustrator, Photoshop

This visualization shows documented conflict fatalities since 1989 as recorded by the Uppsala Conflict Data Program. Each point represents a single event in the dataset with at least one fatality plotted by date and longitude. The size of the points corresponds to the number of fatalities. The brightness corresponds to the density of points (ie. the number of events occurring in roughly the same time/place) A couple of notes about this visualization:

• Exactly what counts as a "conflict death" is inevitably quite fuzzy. Do you count conflicts between police and criminal organizations? Political assassinations? The definitions that the UCDP uses can be found here: definitions, methodology
• Since this visualization only accounts deaths that could be verifiably documented, it likely undercounts the true death toll in many cases, particularly in areas where outside observers have limited access. Each event is assigned a range of casualties based on the different sources that were found. This visualization used the best estimate for each event.
• What constitutes an "event" varies throughout the dataset depending on how different conflicts were documented. In some conflicts fatalities were aggregated after the fact and appear as a handful of large points. In other conflicts the data is much more granular and is composed of a large number of smaller points.

I've also put together a variant that colours the points by continent (link), and one that plots each continent individually (link).

I've also put together a variant that colours the points by continent (link), and one that plots each continent individually (link).