Mapping Births and Deaths

The Atlantic puts out a lot of things online that are clearly demographic in nature, but I have to thank the SDSU Geography Facebook page for pointing me to the latest item--a real-time simulation of births and deaths in the world.

In 1950, there were 2.5 billion humans. Today there are just over 7 billion. In another 30 years, according to U.S. Census Bureau projections, there will be more than 9 billion.

Brad Lyon has a doctoral degree in mathematics and does software development. He wanted to make those numbers visual. Last year he and designer Bill Snebold made a hugely popular interactive simulation map of births and deaths in the U.S. alone—the population of which is on pace to increase 44 percent by 2050. Now, Lyon takes on the world.

Yes, it s a simulation because of course we really don't have that kind of detailed data, but just the concept is a visualization that makes you think seriously about what's happening in the rest of the world outside your own door.