—Dennis King, U.S. Department of State
Instead of the usual depiction of conflicts as countrywide and defined by national boundaries, this visualization displays distinct conflict-affected areas in Africa as sub-national and transnational pockets of armed conflict, intercommunal strife, and political violence. Areas of conflict were drawn around locations of conflict incidents, as well as concentrations of internally displaced persons and refugee camps and rebel bases in neighboring countries. This depiction of areas of conflict more accurately displays where conflict is occurring in Africa and the sub-national and transnational nature of these conflicts. The visualization is available as a wall sized poster map and as an interactive KML file on a Google Earth mash-up. In a follow-on project, this new visualization will be used to analyze the relationship between conflict and geo-spatial factors such as natural resources, terrain, population distribution, infrastructure, etc.