How remote is our world?

[Grey Fox]

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20227041.500-wheres-the-remotest-place-on-earth.html

SO YOU'VE hitch-hiked through Central America, stalked rare beasts in Madagascar and trekked your way through northern Chile. You're pretty well travelled, even if you do say so yourself. Before you get ideas about being an intrepid explorer, however, consider this. For all their wide open spaces and seeming wildernesses, none of these places can be described as remote in 2009.

In fact, very little of the world's land can now be thought of as inaccessible, according to a new map of connectedness created by researchers at the European Commission's Joint Research Centre in Ispra, Italy, and the World Bank.

Explore the maps

The maps are based on a model which calculated how long it would take to travel to the nearest city of 50,000 or more people by land or water. The model combines information on terrain and access to road, rail and river networks (see the maps). It also considers how factors such as altitude, steepness of terrain and hold-ups like border crossings slow travel.

Plotted onto a map, the results throw up surprises. First, less than 10 per cent of the world's land is more than 48 hours of ground-based travel from the nearest city. What's more, many areas considered remote and inaccessible are not as far from civilisation as you might think. In the Amazon, for example, extensive river networks and an increasing number of roads mean that only 20 per cent of the land is more than two days from a city - around the same proportion as Canada's Quebec province.

China's flourishing export trade is clearly seen, with some of the world's busiest shipping lanes
The maps were created to show how the distribution of people affects their access to resources such as education and medical care, and how we are increasingly pushing wildlife out of even the wildest corners of our planet. And with this as a baseline, Alan Belward, who leads the project, hopes to follow how emerging economies will change the face of the world, for better or for worse: "The true value will be in doing the map again."

Maps : http://www.newscientist.com/gallery/small-world/

A River Map.

Damn Spain as a lot of Rivers.

[Iormlund]

[garbon]

Carmen San Diego took them.

[Valmy]

Carmen San Diego took them.

Well she did manage to steal all the geysers in Iceland once.

[Caliga]

I always wondered how she was in the sack. 

[Malthus]

I think the map overstates the ability to navagate in certain areas. For example, I've travelled in places that on the map are coloured as being less than two days away, and on the Canadian shield it would only be true if one assumes that you don't need to portage - that you could go by motorboat to a car the whole way. But the shield lakes & rivers are not so easily navagable, often you can't really do that.

[Valmy]

I always wondered how she was in the sack. 

She will make off with your genitalia.

[garbon]

Well she did manage to steal all the geysers in Iceland once.

She stole major parts of planets and asteroid belts in Where in Space

[Ed Anger]

I always wondered how she was in the sack. 

She will make off with your genitalia.

Ah, her real name is Lorena then.

[lustindarkness]

it's a world of laughter, a world or tears
its a world of hopes, its a world of fear
theres so much that we share
that its time we're aware
its a small world after all

CHORUS:
its a small world after all
its a small world after all
its a small world after all
its a small, small world

There is just one moon and one golden sun
And a smile means friendship to everyone.
Though the mountains divide
And the oceans are wide
It's a small small world

(chorus)

[saskganesh]

I think the map overstates the ability to navagate in certain areas. For example, I've travelled in places that on the map are coloured as being less than two days away, and on the Canadian shield it would only be true if one assumes that you don't need to portage - that you could go by motorboat to a car the whole way. But the shield lakes & rivers are not so easily navagable, often you can't really do that.

the lines of course are drawn for impact, not to scale. and many of those routes are seasonal and weather challenged.

and some of the roads look like below. and that's probably a good stretch. of course, this road is unusual as its paved. 

[MadImmortalMan]

[Iormlund]

Am I the only one who's pltting intercept vectors on those convoys here?

[Caliga]

Am I the only one who's pltting intercept vectors on those convoys here?

No.  It is critical that my supply of miniature American flags made in China and sold at Wal-Mart under the "MADE IN USA BUY AMERICAN" label is unimpeded. 

[jimmy olsen]

Cool map, looks like the world is covered in molten rock.