Here be Pirates!

If you want to avoid pirates while sailing the seven seas then you should steer clear of the equator. Around the globe pirates seem to be most active off the coasts of countries that are close to the equator. You can view this for yourself on John Nelson's 40 Years of Nautical Piracy interactive map.

40 Years of Nautical Piracy is a heat map which visualizes where pirates have been most active around the world over the last 40 years. The map uses data from the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency to show the most dangerous maritime locations in terms of marine piracy.

The map uses equal area hexagons to show the frequency of incidents across the globe. You can click on an individual hexagon on the map to see how many individual incidents there have been in that area. If you zoom in on the map then the individual incidents will be shown as single dots on the map. If you select an individual dot then you can read a description of the piracy event. Once you start reading these descriptions you soon realize how seriously dangerous piracy can be to sea vessels.

You can read more about the map and view a video on how the map was made on the Esri Blog's 40 Years of Piracy post.