The world's maritime traffic in real-time

See the real-time numbers of ships traversing the canal each day

This platform uses satellite data to track chokepoints and trade disruptions along the shipping lanes that crisscross the globe. Search for data from more than 1,600 ports, or run the climate scenario simulator.

Container ships are just a fraction of total traffic via the canal

While more container ships traverse the canal than any other type of ship, vessels carrying dry bulk goods, vehicle carriers, chemical tankers, passenger ships, and more also pass through the Central American passageway.

Track every cruise ship in real time, with itineraries and accident history

CruiseMapper is a live global tracker covering hundreds of vessels across major cruise lines. The site layers in port schedules, cabin-level deck plans, repositioning voyages, and a searchable database of 15 incident types—fires, groundings, virus outbreaks, drug smuggling, passenger deaths, and more.

A timelapse mapping more than 30,000 Transatlantic slave ship voyages

Roughly 12 million people from Africa were forcibly moved to North and South America over two centuries. This map meticulously showcases every ship's origin, destination, timeline, and more, revealing the scale of the Transatlantic slave trade.

Mapping the route options between the Pacific and Atlantic

This map shows some of the alternative trade route options that are available to shipping companies, from overland routes that rely on railways to transport goods coast-to-coast, to Arctic Ocean passages.

Explore an interactive map of WW2 shipwrecks

Historians estimate roughly 20,000 ships were sunk during World War II as a direct cause of fighting, primarily in the Mediterranean and Pacific theaters. This mapping project lists about 75% of them, while the remainder lacked specific location data.

How massive cargo ships fight off modern pirates

Piracy on the high seas costs a reported $16 billion each year from either theft or damage incurred during an attempt to pirate massive cargo ships. This video breaks down several ways companies attempt to fend off would-be thieves. Pirate crews are...

See a data visualization of the East India Company's trade

This tool visualizes the East India Company’s trade from 1760 to 1834, letting you track shipments of tea, textiles, metals, and more. Users can sort by commodity, origin, destination, and date to see London’s vast imperial supply network that shaped the British Empire.

A map of global drug trafficking

The worldwide illegal drug trade continues to flourish. Accounting for almost 1% of the world’s financial revenue, the cocaine trade alone boasts an annual turnover of an estimated $85 billion. This infographic, from Around the World: An Atlas for...

Visualizing New York City's public transportation commutes

New York City is one of the largest cities in the world, and transports one of the largest numbers of commuters on a daily basis. This data visualization tells the stories of those commuters, showing the varying volume of travelers throughout the week and day, where they are going, and maps of high-traffic areas like stadiums and midtown. Dive into the data here.

Explore the animals that populate the depths of the ocean, from fish and coral in the first few hundred feet, all the way down to the bottom of the Mariana Trench.

Visualizing changes in ocean temperatures between 2016 and 2020

How much does the temperature of the sea change in a given year? This visualization helps illustrate the changes by showing sea surface temperature data from January 2016 through March 2020. Sea surface temperature, which refers to water temperature at the sea's surface, plays a significant role in climate and weather.

Visualizing the 75 largest underwater animals

With so many fish in the sea, which are the largest? This infographic shows fantastic illustrations of the 75 largest sea animals, ranked by average size. The detailed visual is organized in descending order of size, starting with the blue whale,...

Track individual sharks around the world in real time

OCEARCH provides essential data on shark populations and marine ecosystems to support broader conservation efforts. Foster your understanding of marine ecosystems by exploring different species and their movement.

The 500 subsea cables that run the internet

Subsea cables carry the majority of data sent across the globe on the internet. An estimated 552 such cables—with more in development—lay on the ocean floor, their thickness similar to a garden hose, made up of optic fibers covered in copper.

See the average daily volume of data processed by the internet, from emails to Zoom meetings

During February 2025, over 333 billion messages were sent via email every day, or approximately 231,400,000 per minute. Over 150 million hours were spent daily on Zoom meetings worldwide, but almost 10 times that amount of video content was streamed in the same timeframe.

Watch the destructive force of bottom trawling on marine ecosystems

Bottom trawling is a fishing method where a net is dragged along the seafloor to catch a species of interest. The process produces as much carbon dioxide yearly as global aviation and leaves trails of destruction large enough to be seen in space.

Maritime trade in the Mediterranean accelerated during the late Bronze Age

This map illustrates the vibrant trade networks of the eastern Mediterranean during the Late Bronze Age (circa 1500–1200 BCE), highlighting an era of growing interconnectivity among major powers including Egypt, the Hittite Empire, Mesopotamia, and others.

Global trade volume is roughly 45 times what it was when the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade was founded

Since 1950, world trade values have grown nearly 410 times, mainly due to the successive tariff reductions negotiated under GATT and the WTO.

Mapping the world's 25 largest stock exchanges

Totaling a market capitalization of $106T (as of 2023), this map identifies the major stock exchanges worldwide on a map, ranking them by total market value. Nearly half of that value is located in the Americas.

See where the 100 million barrels of crude oil the world consumes daily end up

From drilling to driving, crude oil is processed in refineries and transformed into everyday products like fuel, plastics, lubricants, and cosmetics. The US currently uses about 20 million of those barrels per day.

See who is in space right now

Over 600 people have been in space since the space race took off decades ago, with roughly 10 in space at any given time, typically operating the world's growing number of space stations. This fun, simple tracker keeps up on who is in space right now and provides links to each space traveler's profile.

This real-time tracking of the hantavirus cruise ship outbreak in May 2026 offers a unique glimpse into the global reach of the outbreak and whether the virus sickened passengers and their communities around the world.

An overview of the Coral Triangle, which contains about 76% of global coral species

Spanning the waters of Indonesia, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, the Solomon Islands, and Timor-Leste, the region contains more than 600 coral species and over 2,200 of the world's coral reef fish species. It sustains 120 million people with food and other resources, as well as a $12B yearly tourism industry.

On one sailor's race to sail around the world solo

People wanting to sail around the world in modern times can sign up for the Golden Globe Race, a decades-old, organized sprint to circumnavigate the world by ship. This long-form article follows one woman's journey as she attempted to complete the...

Atmospheric rivers are the largest freshwater transport mechanism on Earth

Serving as highways that carry the water vapor equivalent of up to 15 times the average flow of water at the mouth of the Mississippi River, atmospheric rivers are approximately 400 to 600 kilometers (250 to 375 miles) wide and provide 30-50% of the annual precipitation of the US West Coast.

Sushi is an estimated $33B business in the US

US fishermen stock most of the country's more than 17,000 sushi restaurants. Distributors frequently adjust prices for different fish, based on their availability and the quality of the meat. This podcast unpacks how that industry operates.

The US dollar is the most widely circulated currency in the world, and is involved in nearly 90% of global transactions

Stanford built a Google Maps for the Roman Empire, revealing how much it cost to travel in the ancient world

Massive blooms of microscopic plankton called dinoflagellates produce the neon blue light seen in glowing tides.

Track the location of the Voyager probes, currently between 13 and 15 billion miles away from Earth.

Explore an interactive map built from more than 100,000 survey responses on where people find joy in their lives

Explore the known asteroids, comets, and spacecraft involved in asteroid studies within our solar system with 'Eyes on Asteroids,' a 3D visualization from NASA.

Most of the observable universe's volume consists of voids and supervoids—enormous regions of space with little to no galaxies, stars, or light.

An investigation suggests a Scottish island became awash in forever chemicals via seafoam and seaspray—raising questions about what that means for the safety of other coastal areas.

Art theft is the third-largest source of criminal revenues worldwide, thanks in part to the subjective nature of valuing a work of art.

Take a 3D tour of the Hajj, Islam's annual pilgrimage to Mecca, undertaken by more than 1.5 million Muslims each year.

Browse a detailed visual analysis of over 200,000 similes—comparisons that often use 'like' or 'as'—from popular fiction to see how frequently writers the same idiomatic expressions.

Explore fun facts from the USPS, including unique post office buildings, a stamp that traveled past Pluto, and more.

This site reaches millions of visitors who are tired of AI chatbots and seeking human connection. Pretend to be an AI chatbot and ask questions, provide answers, and draw for people in real time.

See the 25 of the best photos of auroras from around the world.

The Nasdaq's 'Magnificent 7' companies are responsible for roughly 40% of the Nasdaq 100 index's gains, while the remaining 93 companies account for the other 60%.

How Amazon operates a 'flywheel' business model, a self-reinforcing cycle that drives continuous growth

'Shogun,' a 1980s TV series, helped popularize sushi in the US by stimulating an American interest in Japanese culture.

Bone marrow (soft tissue found inside certain bones) generates roughly 500 billion new blood cells each day

The deadliest aspect of volcanic eruptions is often not lava, but pyroclastic flows—avalanches of ash, gas, and rock that can move more than half the speed of sound.

The Russia-Ukraine conflict is the largest ground war in Europe since World War II in casualties, forces mobilized, and displacement of civilians.

Power lines are dotted with large, brightly colored balls to improve the visibility of these thin wires to helicopters and small planes and help prevent potential crashes.

See how Budweiser's famous Clydesdales spend their days at Warm Springs Ranch, where roughly 70 to 80 of the beer brand's giant horses can be found at any given time.

After the Boston Tea Party, colonists switched to coffee, which became the main morning drink for revolutionaries.