Looking to avoid the crowds this summer? Check out this tourist density heat map (click the link for the interactive zoomable version) designed by Bluemoon Interactive. The map uses the number of photos from a given location uploaded to Google geotagged photo-sharing site Panoramio to judge an area's touristyness. It's not perfect -- I have a hard time believing that central France is less touristy than say, Bosnia -- but it's a pretty good guide to how to get off the beaten path. 

I remember back in the dark ages of 2009 when making maps from geotagged photo data was a crazy new idea. 

Hat tip:  Marginal Revolution and Information in Beautiful.

China's Economic Observer has put together the following map of overseas expansion by China's big three oil giants, CNOOC, CNPC, and Sinopec. Click through for the interactive version.

Notably absent from this map is Sudan, where CNPC has extensive and very controversial holdings. 

Fiber optic fever has hit East Africa. On Friday, June 12, the 4,500 kilometer (2,790 mile) East Africa Marine System (TEAMS) underwater cable connected the Kenyan port town of Mombasa with Fujairah in the United Arab Emirates and is expected to begin operating within three months.

"Until now, the eastern Africa coast was the longest coastline in the world without a fiber-optic cable connection to the rest of the world," Kenyan president Mwai Kibaki said at the launch ceremony after the cables were pulled ashore.

This great map by Steve Song shows where things will be in a few years with line thickness representing bandwith size. The TEAMS cable (green on map above) is one of three international fiber optic cables expected to reach East Africa this year.

The next (red on map) is constructed by SEACOM, a private company in partnership with a number of African companies. It has already landed, to less fanfare because the Kenyan government has a stake in TEAMS, and is supposed to be ready by the end of June, connecting East Africa to Europe and Asia. The third, the East African Marine Cable System (EASSy) is sponsored by the International Finance Corporation, the private sector wing of the World Bank and is scheduled to be finished in 2010 (blue on map).

When the cables go online, they will replace satellite connections as the main source of internet access in Africa, increasing speed, reliability and reducing cost. This should improve productivity and allow increased access with the lower price. In Kenya, the internet company Access Kenya has already pledged that the new cables will double internet speed for its users, and companies are scrambling buy access to the broadband and to finalize internal fiber optic cables. Neighboring landlocked states like Uganda and Rwanda are seeking to do the same. 

As interconnectivity between African countries increases, economic benefits are expected, especially in Kenya, which has a fast developing IT sector. Other potential impacts include education and access to media.

For a good visual of all the submarine internet cables operating or being built worldwide, check out this Alcatel-Lucent map (pdf).The more connections, the faster information can move. Most major websites are still hosted in the United States and Europe, but as Africa's wired status improves, this could change, and locally hosted data is much faster to access. 

Steve Song/Manypossibilities.net

Posted this one during the Olympics last year but am re-posting in honor of tomorrow's anniversary:

Freedom House's Ellen Bork along with the Weekly Standard's design director Philip Chalk and Tiananmen survivor Tian Jian have created this map for Beijing tourists interested in visiting the sites of the June 4, 1989 massacre of the Tiananmen Square protestors. Each number shows the place where where one of the 176 victims were killed or the hospitals to which their bodies were taken.

You can find information on the victims here and read Bork's explanation of the map at the New York Sun's site.

The invaluable Strange Maps blog shares this intriguing theoretical map of Europe designed by Dutch beer tycoon Freddy Heineken. A dedicated Europhile, Heineken believed that smaller nations within a larger European framework would be more manageable in the post-Cold War era. In 1992, he coauthored a pamhplet titled "The United States of Europe (a Eurotopia?)," which included the above proposal for a new Europe comprised of small territories of roughly equal, ethnically homogernous populations. Click here for the full list of countries.

Heineken's map actually predicts the breakup of Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia with some accuracy. Interestingly, he also seems to be proposing a united Ireland. 

This wasn't the creative Heineken's only eccentric idea to make the world a better place. He also once proposed bottling his beer in square bottles that could be recycled as bricks to build houses in developing countries.

View H1N1 Swine Flu in a larger map

Via UN Dispatch and Lifehacker comes this essential map from biomedical researcher Henry Niman showing the spread of the swine flu virus. Pink markers are suspected cases, purple ones are confirmed.

Geography Professor Thomas Gillespie of UCLA has employed a technique typically used for tracking endangered species in order to pinpoint the most likely location of the world's most wanted terrorist. In a paper (pdf) published in the MIT International Review Gillespie describes how he used biogeographic data including bin Laden's last known location, cultural background, security needs, declining health, limited mobility and height to create a mathematical model that he claims will show where the terror mastermind is hiding.

According to Gillespie, Osama is riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight about here:

More specifically, he found a 90 percent chance that bin Laden is in Kurram province in Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas, most likely in the town of Parachinar which gave shelter to a larger number of Mujahedin during the 1980s. Here's a closer look at the region with Osama probabilities shown:

Gillespie even identified three buildings in Parachinar that would make the most likely shelters for Bin Laden and his entourage. Here's one of them:

The exact coordinates are N. 33.901944° E.70.093746°. Anyone want to go check it out?

Images: The MIT International Review

Using data from the Department of Homeland Security, Northwestern University grad student Ian Stevenson created this gorgeous animation showing the flow of immigrants into the U.S. over time, color-coded by their regional origin. Each dot represents 100 people:

Immigration to the US, 1820-2007 v2 from Ian S on Vimeo.

(Hat tip: Reason's Katherine Mangu-Ward)

If you haven't yet had a chance to read E.J. Graff's superb piece "The Lie We Love" from our November/December issue, it's now available for free on ForeignPolicy.com. The piece is an exploration of the dark side of global adoption and the myth that millions of healthy babies are waiting for adoption in the developing world. Too often, Graff argues, these infants are "manufactured" to meet Western demand.

To accompany the piece, Brandeis University's Schuster Institute for Investigative Journalism has put together this online map showing the countries where the most serious adoption irregularities occur. Click through for in depth country data and check back as more countries are added:

The International Chamber of Commerce's Commercial Crime Services have created a live map showing pirate attacks around the world, as they are reported to the International Martime Bureau. The map shows only attacks from 2008:

As you can see, the gulf of Aden, where a Saudi oil tanker was hijacked by Somali pirates yesterday, is by far the world's most dangerous area for pirate activity. It's hardly the only hotspot, though. West Africa and Indonesia also have a troublingly large pirate problem.

ICC-CSS (Screenshot)

What else could it be today? Here's the LA Times' latest projection. Click to create your own scenarios.

Our own Blake Hounshell has also put together the following invaluable guide to the states you need to watch tonight:

Click here to download.

Too many bank failures and bailouts to keep track of as the financial pandemic makes its way around the globe? Try this new interactive global credit crisis map from Reuters, which shows countries that have been impacted and what measures they've taken in response:

Reuters

Screenshot from bbc.co.uk

This week's map is the centerpiece of The Box, a new multimedia project from the BBC. The producers have painted an ordinary shipping container with the BBC logo, outfitted it with a GPS transmitter, and released it into the wilds of global shipping routes. Along the way, the Beeb will be producing video and text content on trade and globalization, based on the box's activities.

You can follow the progress with only a few hours delay here. After its launch last Monday, the box picked up a shipment of scotch whisky in Glasgow and is now back in the South of England waiting to be shipped off to East Asia.

Also be sure to watch Declan Curry's feature on how the standardization of shipping containers made much of what we call globalization possible. It's truly one of the more underrated technological innovations of recent history.

(Hat tip: Ethan Zuckerman)