Welcome to the Anthropocene: The Age of Humans

Why we love it

Humans. There are so many of us on Earth and more on the way. How are we using and changing Earth’s resources? What are we doing to conserve and sustain? This interactive story map answers such questions with stunning imagery and shocking statistics. Built in collaboration with the Smithsonian, it gives a global and local perspective on many important human issues. We love this map because it is an interactive atlas of human influences.

Why it works

This story map uses the full breadth of the Story Map Journal template to both show information at a global scale and take us to specific locations that ground global themes in local context. The dark basemaps really let the colorful overlays shine, and the map projection is appropriate. This map works by showing how environmental challenges like deforestation and population growth respect no boundaries, and how the planet has been forever changed by the activities of humankind.

View Story Map Journal template

Important steps

Compose your story

Put thought and preparation before diving into the building process for a great map. Collect and prepare the data, photos, and text for your map.
Choose a projection

There are six global datasets best represented using an equal-area projection. Winkel Tripel is best for its compromise properties, which weigh equal-area with readability at the poles, and its familiarity.

The uniqueness of Winkel Tripel
Adjust for resolution data

Increase visibility for higher resolution data, and decrease if your data is lower resolution. Per the data resolution, we used the coarsest of the four to choose the visible scales. Global data works best at small and medium scales.
Choose a color pop

Web maps work best with high contrast and bright colors. Choose colors that pop off the screen and use the fewest classes possible. Also, use the fewest classes of data possible. Employing many classes with a detailed dataset makes for a messy map.

Data

We used data from CIESIN (population), Wildlife Conservation Society (human footprint), University of Minnesota Center on the Environment (agriculture), World Resources Institute (forests), Conservation International (biodiversity hot spots), and IUCN (protected areas).

View CIESIN
Analysis

Global statistics and data from a variety of sources were collected, simplified, projected, and designed for display on the web. Specific locations were found to exemplify points and elements of the story.
Time

This project took approximately two to three weeks to complete, using a primary author with support from a cartographer/GIS analyst.

Keep your map centered and consistent

To make it easy to compare different maps, it is important to use the same projection (and centering) for each section of the story.

Learn more about projections
Use hyperlinks

Take advantage of the built-in actions that link words in the text body to locations on a map.

Story Map Journal tutorial
Use imagery

Use compelling images to draw attention to your story.

5 Principles of Effective Storytelling