View major global infrastructure, including power plants, fuel lines, and water pumping stations

View a map of US data center infrastructure in 2025

Thousands of data centers across the country have already been built, with more under construction or planned. Facilities are connected via transmission and fiber optic lines, with the latter spanning an estimated length of 160 million miles.

Explore a searchable map of underwater cables carrying internet traffic worldwide

The Submarine Cable Map provides users with data from TeleGeography's Transport Networks Research Service on individual submarine cables, including cable owners, suppliers, URLs, landing points, lengths, and notes of interest.

Explore global solar resources with this interactive map

One of the biggest challenges to deploying solar panels is whether electricity can be generated reliably when needed, day after day. This detailed interactive map calculates the solar power output potential of regions worldwide and provides a visual comparison between locations such as North Africa and the US Midwest.

View a map of the balancing authorities managing electric systems and costs throughout the continental US

These are made up of utilities, Power Marketing Administrations—hydropower marketers from the Department of Energy—and groups of utilities that have formed regional entities called Regional Transmission Organizations or Independent System Operators. Collectively, balancing authorities ensure supply meets demand and can direct utilities to implement rolling blackouts to prevent permanent damage to electrical equipment.

View a distribution of wind turbine locations across the US

As of May 2025, the US Wind Turbine Database maps and provides technical specifications for 76,051 onshore and offshore turbines from 1,794 projects, ranging from small installations to large-scale wind farms.

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.

Mapping the world's cell towers

Millions of cell towers around the world help connect the world's 8 billion people via cell phones and the Internet. But access to such coverage, while still expanding, is not equal. This data visualization depicts the world's many cell connections across a global map, revealing cell use hot spots and the world's many gaps in coverage.

Essential pipes, sewers, and cables lie buried beneath New York City

The Department of Design and Construction offers a tour of its work sites, explaining the complex systems that exist underground. Gas, electrical, telecom pipes, and many others, sprawl out underneath the entire city, with dozens of maps that help workers know where they're placed. This layout is unusual compared to the rest of the country, where wires are often present and visible above ground.

View the ecosystem of global services, organizations, and agencies behind the internet

Through an open, transparent, and collaborative model built on open standards development and shared global ownership, the internet is kept freely accessible amid evolving international policies. Key organizations, such as IANA, which allocates IP addresses and fulfills administrative functions for the Domain Name System, function as non-profit organizations.

Create digital maps of Earth with custom sketches and labels

In this interactive, users can apply layers to various base maps to display natural and human features, including geological activity, biomes, ocean currents, population densities, and light pollution. Custom legends, markers, and drawings can be used to highlight prominent features.

Explore a worldwide ranking of smart cities

This interactive site evaluates residents' perceptions of the infrastructure and technologies available to them across 146 cities to produce a ranking based on a Smart City Index. Users can utilize the City Comparison feature to compare their city with others around the world.

Map your next trip along Tesla's Supercharger network

This community-driven platform—created by Tesla enthusiasts—provides information on site statuses, power levels, and plug types across nearly 8,000 stations worldwide.

See the increase in financial crimes globally on a map

The Global Organized Crime Index tracks annual shifts in organized crime, ranging from drug and human trafficking to financial crimes. The map shows crime levels for each country, as well as a profile of the country's annual shifts.

A look at how power is restored after an outage on the electric grid

From minor system failures to more widespread blackouts, crews begin by assessing damage done to infrastructure, such as transmission towers and distribution power lines. Prioritizing essential services, such as hospitals, crews then begin restoration, starting with any damage found closest to the power generation and working down the distribution system to customers.

Mapping NATO's 32 countries across North America and Europe

See an updated map with the option to learn more about each country's membership and role in the alliance. The map shows the borders of its member countries with extra filters capable of locating its many civilian structures, nonmember partners, positions of missile sites, and more.

View a map of the world’s major earthquakes from 1956-2022

Such maps can help identify tectonic plate boundaries. The most significant earthquakes are characteristic of converging plates, such as those in the Circum-Pacific Belt and the Alpine-Himalayan Belt, where the Himalayas continue to grow.

Explore the system of ancient Roman roads with this interactive

The Itiner-e map includes unpaved secondary roads that connected farms and towns to the empire's primary routes. Explore routes, view three-dimensional elevation, and compare the old roads to contemporary ones with this sprawling interactive project.

Local governments are responsible for more than 148,000 public water systems across the US

From large municipal utilities to small rural systems, local governments are tasked with providing clean water to almost every American community. The US operates over 148,000 public water systems.

Explore OPEC’s official webpage

OPEC’s official website offers a comprehensive hub for its core work—featuring press releases, monthly and statistical reports, digital publications like the World Oil Outlook and Annual Statistical Bulletin, and other research center materials.

Take a virtual tour of the International Space Station

The ISS is the largest human-made object in space. Its modules were meticulously connected by robotic arms and astronauts during slow, careful spacewalks, creating a structure with over eight miles of electrical wire.

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.

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.

Electrical grids worldwide must double their power delivery capacity by 2050 to meet surging demand from AI and electric vehicles.

Manholes connect underground sewer and water drain pipes

Wherever a portion of sewer is connected to another, a manhole is built. These serve both as access points for maintenance and as connectors for the system. This video shows how crucial manholes are for proper sewer functioning.

Manage the control room of a virtual nuclear power plant

This interactive takes you on a tour of a virtual plant before handing you the keys to the control room. Challenge yourself to produce enough energy to meet demand while avoiding a nuclear meltdown.

Global CO2 levels as measured at Hawaii’s Mauna Loa Observatory, managed by the US government’s NOAA.

The Global Monitoring Laboratory conducts research on greenhouse gas and carbon cycle feedbacks, changes in clouds, aerosols, and surface radiation, and recovery of stratospheric ozone.

IBM helped turn Rio de Janeiro into a smart city before it hosted the World Cup

In response to the deadly floods and mudslides in 2010, Brazil and IBM developed a multimillion-dollar plan to modernize Rio's emergency management infrastructure. An operations center utilizes advanced weather forecasting, surveillance, and real-time data to surveil and respond to events such as severe storms more accurately.

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

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.

The American Society of Civil Engineers' infrastructure report card gave the US a C in 2025, its highest grade since the project launched in 1998.

Visualize the path of every solar eclipse from 1900 to 2099 and see what each looks like when observed from different locations on Earth.

Explore an interactive map of battles from the American Revolution, along with detailed summaries of each engagement

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

When you complete a CAPTCHA on a website to prove you are human, you may be unknowingly training algorithms for self-driving cars, whose systems require training data to help identify crosswalks, bicycles, and other outdoor objects.

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

See photos of Meteora, a mountainous site in central Greece, home to 14th-century monasteries perched atop soaring outcroppings.

Louisiana's 'Cancer Alley' is infamous for having some of the highest industrial pollution, toxic air emissions, and cancer risks in the US.

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.

The use of fungi to detoxify land and water—a process known as mycoremediation—has been used to clean up natural resources affected by the 2025 California wildfires.

An initial public offering or 'IPO' is the process of a private company becoming public by putting shares of the company on the stock market for purchase.

Volcanoes 'die' when their supply of magma runs out, if they are shifted away from their underlying magma reservoir, or if they get clogged by collapsing or their magma cooling back into rock.

In 1984, Operation Smash Hit intentionally crashed a 239-ton train into a nuclear waste canister at 100 miles per hour to prove the canister's safety, which remained completely intact and lost just 0.29 of its 100 pounds of pressure.

See 33 images that became central to huge scandals, including a young Charles and Camilla, Michael Jackson's baby on a hotel balcony, and Hugh Grant's mugshot.

This poison ivy knowledge quiz—accompanied by photos of the plant's varied forms—may help you identify this common rash-inducing growth.

The price of gas is a composite made up of several different factors, with the federal gas tax making up less than 20% of what drivers pay at the pump.

The syncytiotrophoblast is the outer layer of the placenta and the largest human cell, spanning an area about twice that of a king-sized bedsheet.

Legendary architect Frank Lloyd Wright designed the SC Johnson headquarters in Wisconsin, aiming to make a cathedral-like workplace

Pure water does not conduct electricity because this flow of energy requires the movement of charged particles, and water is a neutral molecule.

Gerrymandering works through two techniques: cracking opposing voters across districts to dilute their power, and packing them into a few to waste their votes in lopsided majorities.