Why not link to the original (much more descriptive) article? <a href="http://sappingattention.blogspot.com/2012/04/visualizing-ocean-shipping.html" rel="nofollow">http://sappingattention.blogspot.com/2012/04/visualizing-oce...</a>
Observations/questions:<p>1. There are quite a few lines that terminate in the middle of the Atlantic. Are those ships that went down?<p>2. I'm surprised how much traffic to North America falls off after the 18th Century. Is that real, or is this data biased toward sources that weren't involved much in the North American trade?<p>3. Most of the routes from Europe around Africa to Asia seem to swing much closer to South America than I would have expected. Are there favorable currents or weather or something that makes it faster or safer to take this longer route?
Why were they sailing way down south and then to the east when going around Africa? Predominant winds or currents?<p><pre><code> | ______
| / \__
| | \
| \___ \_
| \ /
| | /
| | /
V | |
| \__/
+--->------------
</code></pre>
* if you pardon my ascii art
This is very interesting - YT link for those who prefer to download and watch at a faster speed: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=tnqxrcfUMsw" rel="nofollow">http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=t...</a><p>"Ben Schmidt used the R language and data recorded in by hand in ship logs[<i></i>] to create the animation above. Like all good data visualizations, it's not just fascinating to look at, it draws the viewer in to inspect the details and wonder. For example, at around 3:25 check out the flotilla of Spanish ships leaving the east and west coasts of South America in the early 1778 and converging on Europe in the summer. I'm no history buff[*] and a little Googling didn't reveal what this was all about -- does anyone know? Ben points out other historical events, such as Captain Cook's exploration of the south Pacific in 1772-1775.<p>In sailing, the weather certainly was a factor, which leads to another cool detail: that bouncing month indicator isn't just there for show. The month is positioned at location of the sun at noon in Africa - when it's near the the south it indicates summer in the southern hemisphere, and summer in the North when it's near Egypt. Ben has also created a seasonal version of the chart, showing all of the voyages of the period by month. You can see that animation, plus much more detail and commentary from Ben about the shipping data themselves, at the link below."
This is sort of cool but I think it's a bit too easy for people to be misled on what this is. This is just a <i>sampling</i> of route data for a tiny fraction of all ship voyages at any given time. This means that you cannot make any conclusions about, say, overall traffic levels or anything of that sort, this is like looking at sail traffic through a straw, this is not in any sense a complete survey.
Obviously "English channel" centric.<p>You can draw more ships just taking the Spanish and Portuguese routes 200 years before saved for instance in the "Archivo general de Indias" in Seville.
Sorry but this not the age of sail ... The age of sail started around 1350~1450. 1700 was age of maritime trades at least.<p>The continent discoveries, for instances: 1492 of America and Brazil 1500, or the discovery of maritime way to India in 1498. These fits better in the concept of "Age of Sail".<p>You play too much civilization and read less about history :)
Since longitude couldn't be measured accurately until the late 18th century, it would be interesting to see if there's any change in the quality of the data around that time.
It's a shame Portugal is missing there. Portugal was once the biggest empire thanks to sailing and colonization. But oh well all we've left is a debt crisis to solve now :)