The Arctic Circle Assembly is the largest annual international gathering on the Arctic, attended by more than 2000 participants from over 60 countries. The Assembly is held every October in Harpa Concert Hall and Conference Center, Reykjavík, Iceland. With the event on the doorstep, a closer look at who has stakes in this region that has received a growing interest in recent years. The following map shows all nations that have territorial claims in the Arctic, the region that is defined as the area that lies North of the Arctic Circle at about 66°34’N:
Tag Archives: geopolitics
Changing Political Landscapes of Germany 2017
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The following cartogram series provides a detailed look into the changed political landscapes in Germany following this year’s general election. While the previous maps gave an insight into the strongest party in each constituency, these maps give a clearer picture of the vote share distribution that also determines the constitution of parliament which follows a system of proportional representation. Continue reading
Bundestagswahl 2017: Electoral cartograms of Germany
The re-election of Angela Merkel as chancellor of Germany in yesterday’s federal election (Bundestagswahl) came as little surprise. Yet the final result was still widely seen as a political earthquake. The extreme right ‘Alternative for Germany‘ (Alternative für Deutschland, AfD) entered the federal parliament (Bundestag) with 12.6% of the second vote (Zweitstimme) that determines the proportional distribution of seats (having gained 7.9% compared to the 2013 election). With 94 seats, the party has become the third largest after CDU (26.8%, 200 seats, having lost 7.4%) and SPD (20.5%, 153 seats, having lost 5.2%). FDP re-entered parliament with 10.7% of the second vote (up by 6.0%, 80 seats). Former opposition leader Die Linke went up by 0.6% to 9.2% (69 seats), followed by Grüne at 8.9% (67 seats, having gained 0.5%). CDU’s sister party in Bavaria, CSU, lost 1.2% and is at 6.2% (46 seats).
AfD’s rise is the most significant change in the political landscape which also becomes visible on the new electoral maps of this year’s election. The following two maps show the distribution of the largest party in the first and second vote. In the southern parts of east Germany (Saxony) AfD managed to win three constituencies with the first-past-the-post first vote, and also became the largest party in eight constituencies in the second vote that decides on each party’s proportional representation in parliament.
Apart from this change, the electoral landscape of the strongest party in each constituency remains similar to previous elections: SPD, despite their losses, remains strongest in the urban areas of north-, central- and western Germany and are stronger in the constituency vote, while CDU dominates rural regions and much of Southern Germany except for Bavaria where CSU is taking CDU’s role. Die Linke only becomes visible as a winner in East Germany, while the Green Party holds on to its only constituency seat in Berlin:
Mediterranean Refugees (March 2016 Update)
This year’s New Teacher Subject Day organised by the Prince’s Teaching Institute took place at Altrincham Grammar School for Girls near Manchester. For the geography teachers the focus was on the topic of Geopolitics and Borders to which I contributed a talk about ‘The Power of Maps: A Cartographic Journey along the World’s Borders’ (see slides at the end of this page) and also organised a practical session where the participants learned to create their own cartogram. Related to the theme and linking to the content of my talk, this cartogram was an update of the Refugee arrivals map from 2015 using the latest data by UNHCR. The following map shows the number of refugee arrivals by sea in the Mediterranean in the first months of 2016 (as of March, 3):
Nuclear Powers
In the final year of his presidency Obama’s vision of a nuclear-free world proposed in 2009 seems far from becoming a reality. Although the countries with the largest arsenal of nuclear weapons (Russia and the USA) reducing their inventory, a recent report by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) states that China, France, Russia, and the UK “are either developing or deploying new weapon systems or have announced their intention to do so.” The state of the nuclear world therefore has changed very little in recent years, as SIPRI shows: “At the start of 2015, nine states — the United States, Russia, the United Kingdom, France, China, India, Pakistan, Israel and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK, or North Korea) — possessed approximately 15 850 nuclear weapons, of which 4300 were deployed with operational forces. Roughly 1800 of these weapons are kept in a state of high operational alert.” The following cartogram shows who the nuclear powers are in the world:
Mediterranean Refugees
While preparing a guest lecture at the University of the Aegean on the Greek island of Lesbos I looked for the most recent data about arrivals of refugees via the Mediterranean Sea. UNHCR states that in 2015 almost 900,000 people have arrived in Europe by sea which is higher than the total arrivals counted between 2006 and 2014. 3,500 people are reported dead or missing, which only shows the mere numbers behind the many personal tragedies happening in the Mediterranean. Not only the numbers went up considerably, but also the geographic patterns changed. While Italy used to be the hot spot of arrivals, this has now shifted to Greece where over 750,000 people arrived. Most of these arrivals come from Turkey, making the island of Lebos near the Turkish coast the first destination for the majority of people seeking refuge in the European Union. The following map shows the European countries resized according to the total number of Mediterranean sea arrivals in 2015:
