01
Trade
All goods, on the bilateral network the engine runs on: partner size over distance, adjusted for the agreements and frictions on file. Every other flow is weighted by this one.
Reference
Twenty one things that move between places
Each readable three ways and groupable twenty two, which is 1,386 distinct flows. Some are computed from the network the engine runs on. Some are inferences from figures the dataset can carry honestly, and those are marked.
The flows
From a port to a port
Every flow is anchored to a real node rather than to the centre of a country: a pipeline ends at its terminal, a lane passes through its strait, a cable lands where it lands. The dots run in the direction the flow goes, and hovering a node lights every flow that touches it.
The ones that come from the model itself
02
Energy
From the countries that produce more than they use to the ones that do the opposite, weighted by how much the receiver burns.
03
Food
From surplus to deficit, weighted by how many mouths are on the receiving end.
04
Semiconductors
Leading edge output from the eight clusters that hold it, to the economies that use it.
05
People
Net movement between countries, taken from the migration block rather than drawn for effect.
06
Remittances
Money sent home, from the migration block against the income gap between the two ends. Where people have gone is where the money comes back from.
The ones that ask a different question of the same trade
01
Freight
The same trade weighted by how far it has to travel. A different map entirely: it says where the shipping is rather than where the value is.
02
Embodied carbon
The same trade weighted by how dirty the producing end is. This is the map that says who is emitting on whose behalf, which a per head emissions map cannot.
03
Virtual water
The water that went into food that then crossed a border, from the water rich to the water stressed. Most water that moves between countries moves this way rather than in a pipe.
04
Capital goods
Out of industrial economies, in proportion to how much of their output is industry and how much of it leaves.
The ones that are inferences, and say so
01
Arms
Military spending at the sending end against tension at the receiving end. There is no open bilateral arms dataset this plugin can stand behind, so this is an inference and the panel says so.
02
Bandwidth
Connectivity at one end against connectivity at the other. A proxy for traffic, not a measurement of it.
03
Students
Toward research capacity and income, away from youth: where the universities are against where the young people are.
04
Travel
Income at one end and somewhere worth going at the other. The one flow that prefers to be short, so distance counts against it rather than for it.
05
Assistance
From high income and stable toward low income and stressed, scaled by how many people are on the receiving end.
06
Investment
Capital looking for a return: surplus at one end, growth and governance at the other.
07
Knowledge
Research spending at both ends, because an idea travels between places that can use it rather than from a rich place to a poor one.
08
Medicine
Out of the places with the research and the industry, toward the places with the people and the least of either.
09
Minerals
A proxy the dataset can carry honestly: extraction intensive economies are the ones with a large industry share against a small services share.
Three ways to read one, twenty two ways to group it
Any flow can be read both ways, outbound only, or inbound only, and filtered to a bloc, a treaty organisation, or everybody. Outbound from the Gulf on energy is a different map from inbound to the Gulf on energy, and both are different from the same flow read across everybody. Twenty one flows, three directions and twenty two groupings is one thousand three hundred and eighty six distinct pictures, which is not a boast: it is what happens when three honest choices are allowed to combine.
Every flow carries its own note in the panel, saying what it is computed from and whether it is a measurement or an inference.
The layers are the other half of this
A flow is what moves between places. A layer is what is true of a place.
The layers