{"id":4770,"date":"2016-03-07T11:00:19","date_gmt":"2016-03-07T11:00:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.viewsoftheworld.net\/?p=4770"},"modified":"2016-04-11T14:50:53","modified_gmt":"2016-04-11T14:50:53","slug":"mediterranean-refugees-march-2016-update","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.viewsoftheworld.net\/?p=4770","title":{"rendered":"Mediterranean Refugees (March 2016 Update)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Prince's<\/a>This year’s New Teacher Subject Day organised by the Prince’s Teaching Institute<\/a> took place at Altrincham Grammar School for Girls<\/a> near Manchester. For the geography teachers the focus was on the topic of Geopolitics and Borders<\/em> 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<\/a> from 2015 using the latest data by UNHCR<\/a>. The following map shows the number of refugee arrivals by sea in the Mediterranean in the first months of 2016 (as of March, 3):<\/p>\n

\"Cartogram<\/a>
\n(click for larger version)<\/a><\/p>\n

The map clearly shows how Greece remains the main hotspot for arrivals of refugees in the European Union with all the related political implications<\/a> that reach beyond the borders of the EU.
\nThe following slides (also available on Slideshare<\/a>) show this in a broader context as to how borders find their manifestation in maps, but also how they relate to the ‘real-world’ geography. Maps are one key element in creating borders in our minds and cartographic images quite often reflect and sometimes create geopolitics: