Mapping China Tech Giants

The recent arrest of Huawei's Meng Wanzhou in Canada, at the request of the USA, has highlighted the growing tensions between China and the west over the ever growing influence of Chinese technological companies around the world. The west accuses these Chinese tech companies of continually stealing technology from western companies. It also has security concerns about Chinese technology being used in the west.

Chinese technology companies are playing a huge role in bringing modern technology to many previously unconnected areas, particularly in the developed world. This in turn worries many western governments who are concerned about the strategic and political implications of countries in the developing world being reliant on Chinese technological infrastructure.

The Australian Strategic Policy Institute has released an interactive map tracking the global reach of 12 key Chinese tech companies (including Huawei). Mapping China's Tech Giants shows the global influence and the global infrastructure being built by 12 of China's biggest technology companies. The interactive map includes the locations of undersea cables, 5G networks, data centers and manufacturing facilities. In total there are 17,000 data points shown on the map. This data can be filtered by technology type, by company and by individual company. If you click on the 'view companies' link in the map sidebar you can also view more details on the 12 individual Chinese tech companies featured on the map.

Providing technological support and infrastructure is just one way in which China is expanding its geo-politcal influence and global reach. China has also invested heavily in the physical infrastructure related to transport, energy and trade around the world. You can read more about China's global 'belt and road' initiatives in Understanding China's Belt and Road Project.

Understanding China's Belt & Road Project

China has spent more than 25 billion dollars on its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). The initiative is designed to create the infrastructure to secure China’s trade routes and energy supplies. It is also being used to increase China's influence in the rest of the world. Kontinentalist has published a great introduction to China's Belt and Road Initiative in the form of an interactive story map.

Understanding the Belt and Road both visualizes the physical infrastructure being built by China and explores the reasons why China is investing so much money in creating these transport links with the rest of the world. The interactive map first displays the six economic corridors that China are developing to connect the super power with Europe, Central Asia, Russia, and the Middle East. Each of these corridors can be selected on the map to learn more about each of the six individual routes. As you progress through the story the interactive map updates to explore the economic reasons behind the Belt and Road Project. To help visualize the economic reasoning behind the project the map is updated to show the population of China's major cities and regional GDP from 2012-2016.

Understanding the Belt and Road includes a number of other data visualizations which look more closely at how China is funding the initiative. In particular Understanding the Belt and Road examines the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, which China is developing to counteract the power of the Bretton Woods institutions of the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the Asian Development Bank.

Understanding the Belt and Road also explores the diplomatic partnerships that China is developing with other countries. The interactive map is used to highlight on the map the '16+1 Initiative', China's partnership with 16 Central and Eastern European countries. It also shows how in Asia the 'Lancang-Mekong Cooperation', is building a partnership with all the Mekong countries. The map also explores the partnerships China is developing in the Middle-East and in Africa.

Finally Understanding the Belt and Road looks at some of the issues that China is facing in building such a huge initiative. These problems include territorial disputes where other countries might not be entirely supportive of China building economic corridors on disputed territory. It also explains some of the debt-trap diplomacy that China has used to impose its Belt and Road Initiative on countries which are heavily in debt to China.


You can learn more about the BRI on the Mercator Institute for China Studies' Belt and Road Tracker, an interactive map which shows some of the many BRI projects spanning Asia, the Middle East, Europe and Africa. These projects include huge transport and oil & gas pipeline networks. The map sidebar allows you to show or hide different types of infrastructure project on the map. These include the railroads, ports and gas & oil pipelines which China has already constructed as part of its BRI. It also allows you to view railroads, ports and gas & oil pipelines which China plans to construct in the near future.

In One Belt, One Road the Financial Times also explores some of the construction projects being created by China to transport people and goods around the world. In The five main projects of the Belt and Road Initiative the South China Morning Post explores five huge Chinese infrastructure projects. These include a rail route from China to London, Gwadar Port, a rail route to Iran, the Asian gas pipeline and the Khorgas Gateway.

The Deathscapes of China

The huge level of development in twenty-first century China has been bad news for the dead. The high premium on land in the country has resulted in a kind of graveyard gentrification, where those who had thought they had reached their final resting place have had their graves forcibly relocated to other locations. In fact around ten million graves have been exhumed and moved in just the last ten years.

Chinese Deathscape: Grave Reform in Modern China by Thomas S. Mullaney, Professor of Chinese History at Stanford University, explores the reasons behind this modern policy of grave relocation and burial reform in China. The essay examines the incentives and punishments imposed by the central government to encourage regions to meet their grave relocation quotas. It also looks at how these grave relocations have been reported by the media and have been perceived by the Chinese people.

Accompanying the essay is an interactive map of the locations around China where graves have been exhumed. The size of the markers on the map reflects the number of graves relocated at each location. The annotated locations in the text are particularly impressive. If you click on an underlined passage in the essay then the map will center on the mentioned location. In addition a line is drawn from the text to its actual location on the interactive map. If you select locations on the map you can view details on the date of the relocation and the numbers of graves exhumed.

Mapping Chinese New Year

Every year around 2.8 million trips are made by Chinese people traveling home to spend the Chinese New Year with their families. Thanks to Baidu maps we are able to see when, where and how they traveled. Baidu's mobile map application has over 350 million active users and receives over 10 billion location requests every day. This provides Baidu with a unique insight into the movements of the Chinese population over the Spring Festival.

Every year Baidu releases its Qianxi (migration) visualization. This interactive map allows you to explore which national highways were the most congested over the Chinese New Year Spring Festival. It also allows you to visualize the movements to and from China's largest cities over the holiday period.

According to the map the peak congestion on China's national highways was on February 6th. On February 4th, the day before the Chinese New Year, the cities which saw the highest inflow of people returning home for the New Year were Chongqing, Chengdu and Beijing respectively. On February 4th the cities which saw the highest outflows of people travelling home were Beijing, Chengdu and Shanghai respectively.

The Interactive Map of Chinese

Hanzi, the written language of Chinese, has tens of thousands of separate characters. Many of those characters are not widely used. However, to be truly literate in written Chinese, you need a knowledge of at least three to four thousand characters.

The Hanzi Universe is an interesting experiment in mapping 8,615 Chinese characters according to their visual similarity. The Structural Similarity Index was used to create a map of the Chinese characters organized by their visual similarity. The Mapbox interactive mapping platform has then been used to allow users to explore this map of 8,615 different Chinese characters.

You can explore the Hanzi Universe map just as you would any other interactive map by zooming in and out and by panning the map. You can also search the map by pinyin, the official romanization system for Chinese. Characters on the map are colored by one of the five tones used when pronouncing the word in Mandarin. If you select a character on the map you can listen to the word by clicking on the headphones icon. You can also view the character's meaning, learn the number of strokes that are used to make the character and view the word's pinyin spelling.


If you are interested in spoken Chinese then you might also like the Phonemica interactive map. Phonemica is a really interesting map of Chinese spoken stories. The project was conceived as a way to preserve spoken stories in China as spoken in the local vernacular.

Anyone can record a story at home and submit it to the map. Different Chinese languages and dialects are differentiated on the map by different colored map markers. You can also filter the results shown on the map by location, keyword and language / dialect. If you click on a map marker you can click through to listen to the recording of the submitted story.

You can find more maps about languages spoken around the world by using the languages tag.

Satellite Evidence of China's Re-education Camps

The BBC has today released an investigation into China's re-edudcation camps, which are being used to persecute Muslims in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region (XUAR). Up to one million people in China have been detained by the government because of their religion. Uighurs, Kazakhs and other Muslims in XUAR have been arrested and imprisoned in re-education camps.

Many of the reasons for the arrest of people in XUAR have been farcical. Muslims have been arrested and imprisoned for having 'abnormal' beards, for wearing veils or for avoiding alcohol. In fact people have been arrested for any sign of religious belief or cultural affiliation.

The BBC's report China's Hidden Camps includes interviews, photographs, and expert testimony. It also includes evidence of China's re-education camps which has been gathered from satellite imagery. GMV, a multinational aerospace company, has examined 101 facilities located across Xinjiang, which could be involved in the detention of the Uighurs. By measuring the growth of these facilities over recent years on satellite imagery of XUAR and by looking for direct evidence of security fencing, watchtowers and other security features they have identified 44 of these facilities which they believe are being used as re-education camps.

China's Hidden Camps includes before and after satellite imagery of what they believe is a re-education camp at Dabancheng. Using this satellite imagery the BBC shows how the facility has grown and identifies some of the features of the camp. When the BBC attempted to visit the camp on the ground it was quickly stopped by the police and told to stop filming.

More evidence of China's re-education camps can be viewed on Amnesty International's interactive map. Amnesty International has mapped reports given to them by relatives of imprisoned Muslims in China. The map tells the stories of many Uighur citizens, most of them who live abroad, who have relatives that have been arrested and detained by the Chinese. You can view and explore the interactive map in Amnesty's Up To One Million Detained in China's Mass Re-education Drive.

The China Strike Map

The ever growing manufacturing and construction industries in China have worked wonders for the Chinese economy and for the large number of Chinese billionaires who have struck it rich on the back of this industrial strength.

Unfortunately the average Chinese worker has not substantially benefited from the thriving economy. In fact they are often forced to work in what can only be described as inhuman conditions. Workers in Chinese factories often work 11 hour days, six days a week and can be paid a lot less than a dollar an hour. To do this they often live in dormitory conditions and very rarely get to see their families.

China does have labour laws but these labour laws are widely ignored. One response to the harsh working conditions, poor pay and ignored labour laws has been the growing number of wildcat strikes by workers in China. These strikes are most often not reported by the Chinese media. Which is why the China Labour Bulletin's Strike Map is so important.

The CLB Strike Map plots strikes across China. The map's default view shows the location of labour strikes over the previous six months. However you can change the dates of the strikes on the map, which is particularly useful in tracking the number of strikes reported to the China Labour Bulletin over time. You can also filter the results shown on the map by industry and by the number of strikers participating in a strike.

The China Labour Bulletin also produce an interactive China Work Accident Map, which tracks injuries and deaths which occur in Chinese factories and other places of work.

China's Religious Re-Education Camps

Up to one million people in China have been detained by the Chinese government because of their religion. Uighurs, Kazakhs and other Muslims in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region (XUAR) have been arrested by the Chinese authorities and imprisoned in re-education camps. People have been arrested and imprisoned for having 'abnormal' beards, for wearing veils or for avoiding alcohol. In fact people have been arrested for any sign of religious belief or cultural affiliation.

Amnesty International has created an interactive map from the reports given to them by relatives around the world. The map tells the stories of many Uighur citizens, most of them who live abroad, who have relatives that have been arrested and detained by the Chinese. You can view and explore the interactive map in Amnesty's Up To One Million Detained in China's Mass Re-education Drive.

One reason why many Uighur have been arrested is that they are suspected of having foreign contacts. This has resulted in many Uighur living abroad being wary of reporting missing relatives and for Uighurs living in China being unwilling and unable to contact relatives living abroad.

Hong Kong Land Reclamation

A new interactive map shows how Hong Kong has grown over the last 180 years through a steady process of land reclamation. Land reclamation in mountainous Hong Kong has been an important tool to expand the limited supply of usable land. Over 35% of the area of present day Hong Kong is land which has been reclaimed from the sea.

The History of Land Reclamation is a visualization of how land in Hong Kong has been reclaimed from the sea since the mid-Nineteenth Century. The blue line on the map shows the historic coastline of Hong Kong. The reclaimed land is colored on the map by the date of reclamation. The map also includes a time control slider which allows you to view time reclamation projects in the city by date. If you click on the 'visible layers' menu you can add historical photos of Hong Kong to the interactive map.


You can also explore Hong Kong's ever expanding coastline by exploring the old maps on Hong Kong Historic Maps. This collection of vintage maps of the city includes maps dating from the beginning of the Nineteenth Century. Hong Kong Historic Maps also includes the option to overlay the historic coastlines of Hong Kong on top of the vintage maps. These coastline overlays show the coastline of the city after major reclamation projects throughout the last 180 years.

China's New Silk Roads

China has already spent more than 25 billion dollars on its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). The initiative is designed to create the infrastructure to secure China’s trade routes and energy supplies. It is also being used to increase China's influence in the rest of the world.

The Mercator Institute for China Studies Belt and Road Tracker is an interactive map which shows some of the many BRI projects spanning Asia, the Middle East, Europe and Africa. These projects include huge transport and oil & gas pipeline networks. The map sidebar allows you to show or hide different types of infrastructure project on the map. These include the railroads, ports and gas & oil pipelines which China has already constructed as part of its BRI. It also allows you to view railroads, ports and gas & oil pipelines which China plans to construct in the near future.

In One Belt, One Road the Financial Times also explores some of the construction projects being created by China to transport people and goods around the world. In The five main projects of the Belt and Road Initiative the South China Morning Post explores five huge Chinese infrastructure projects. These include a rail route from China to London, Gwadar Port, a rail route to Iran, the Asian gas pipeline and the Khorgas Gateway.

The Interactive Mao Kun Map

The Mao Kun Map is the earliest Chinese map to accurately map Southern Asia, Persia, Arabia and East Africa. The map was first published in the 17th century in the military treatise Wubei Zhi. The introduction to the map in Wubei Zhi suggests that the Mao Kun charts are based on documents from the expeditions of Zheng He. The Mao Kun Map is also sometimes known as Zheng He's Navigation Map.

The map is a long strip map charting the sea route from the Ming capital in Nanjing to the East Coast of Africa (the map is arranged from right to left, starting from Nanjing and finishing in Hormuz.) You can follow the whole route in close detail on the Interactive Zheng He Sailing Map. This interactive version of the map was created by Professor Anthony Barbieri-Low of the University of California, Santa Barbara.

The interactive map includes translations of 100 of the Chinese place-names on the map. If you hover over these place-names (highlighted in red on the map) you can read the English translation. If you click on a highlighted place-name you can view the selected location on Google Maps. All these translated and mapped locations are also available from a drop-down menu, which provides a quick way to find a location on the map. A small inset map runs along the top of the map to show where you are currently looking on the huge strip map.

The dotted lines on the map are sailing routes. The Chinese text along these routes provide sailing instructions, including compass points and distances. The sailing instructions are more detailed in Chinese waters. The map itself is also more accurate in Chinese territory and is less complete the further west it goes.

China's Great Sea Grab

For a number of years the Republic of China has been engaged in a huge territory grab in the South China Sea. It has claimed countless coral reefs and engaged in building artificial islands, both of which it is using to construct new military bases. Other countries in the area dispute China's ownership of these islands and are becoming increasingly worried about the country's growing military presence.

Reuters has been examining satellite imagery to track China's military expansion in the South China Sea. In Concrete and Coral Reuters has worked with Earthrise Media to explore China's construction projects, particularly on the Paracel and Spratly islands. As part of this investigation Reuters has mapped out the extent of China's dredging and reclamation work on both island chains. This is presented in two maps showing the extent of the Paracel and Spratley islands before and after China's reclamation work.



Both these maps show that the territory owned by China has increased dramatically over the last few years as it reclaims land for military installations. During the same period the amount of reefs and islands owned by other countries on the Spratly Islands has remained largely the same. Only South Vietnam appears to have reclaimed a little land, and nowhere near to the extent of China.

Reuters' small multiples graphic of the Spratly and Paracel Islands is supported by satellite imagery which similarly shows the extent of China's dredging and reclamation work. The satellite imagery also reveals the extent of China's military construction work on the islands.

The Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative has mapped out all the territorial claims of the Asia Pacific. Its Maritime Claims of the Asia Pacific attempts to provide an as complete, accurate and up-to-date map as possible of all the competing maritime claims in the region.


On the map each country's territorial claims are shown using color-coded borders. The map includes a filter option which allows you to view any combination of countries' claims on the map. By selecting any two country's territorial claims on the map it is possible to see exactly where they have territorial disputes.

The Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative map doesn't show territorial claims for the Spratly and Paracel Islands "due to a lack of clarity about what each country claims".


In the last few years both China and Japan have escalated their military presence in the South and East China Seas. China has also become caught up in diplomatic rows with Vietnam, Taiwan, Malaysia, the Philippines and Brunei over long standing conflicting claims over territorial rights in the China seas.

Al Jeezera has published a map examining the history of the South China Sea Disputes. The map explores some of the historical hot-spots between China and its neighbors in the area since 1974. The map itself was created using Leaflet.js and the Knight Lab Story Maps library.

The Story Maps template means that you can explore the map chronologically, using the forward and back arrows to progress through Al Jaeera's mapped history of the region. You can also click on the map markers to jump to individual locations on the map to learn more about the history of territorial disputes in that area.

China to London by Train

The South China Morning Post has published an impressive data visualization which take you on a journey along each of China's five biggest Belt and Road infrastructure projects. China's ambitious One Belt, One Road strategy plans to connect China to the rest of Asia, the Middle East, Europe and Africa with a huge transport and oil & gas pipeline network.

In The five main projects of the Belt and Road Initiative the South China Morning Post explores a rail route from China to London, Gwadar Port, a rail route to Iran, the Asian gas pipeline and the Khorgas Gateway.  For each of these projects the newspaper has created an animated route story map. As you scroll through each story the map follows the route of the selected infrastructure project. The accompanying text and images explain the nature of the project and introduce the many locations that the route passes through.

Also See

Fortune's China Belt & Road - a map showing some of the rail, oil & gas pipelines and maritime connections that China has already constructed or plans to build
One Belt, One Road - a Financial Times story map exploring some of the Belt and Road projects
Riding the New Silk Road - a New York Times story map traveling along one of the new rail lines
The World According to China - a series of maps from the NYT showing where and how much China has invested in other countries

High Speed Rail Destinations

China now has over 16,000 miles of high-speed rail-lines. Trains can travel on these high-speed lines at over 200 mph. It is the world's largest and most used high-speed rail network. Places High-Speed Rail Can Take You is an interactive map of China's growing high-speed rail network. The map is designed to show you where you can travel to by high-speed train from any Chinese city.

If you select a city on the map you can view all the destinations you can reach using the high speed train network within 3, 4, 5 or 6 hours journey time from your selected city. It is a great way for passengers to see the destinations available to them within a set time.

If you select a station on the map or select it from the drop-down menu the map will show you all the high-speed rail lines from that city. The lines are colored on the map to show the travel times to different destinations. Where the line is yellow the train can arrive there in 3 hours, orange equals 4 hours, pink is 5 hours and purple is 6.

50 Years of Typhoons

68 Years of Wind and Rain is an animated map showing historical typhoon tracks in and around the southeast coast of China. The map visualizes 1,832 typhoons in the region since 1949.

As the map animation plays out typhoon tracks are added to the map by year. The yellow typhoon tracks show the typhoons that made landfall in mainland China. As the animation plays the bar graph below the map also updates to show the frequency of typhoons by year.

Below the main map are a number of small multiple maps showing the tracks of some of the most destructive tropical storms to have hit China. These small maps show the strength of each typhoon and where each made landfall. Towards the bottom of the page are graphs showing which Chinese provinces have suffered the most from tropical storms.


NOAA's Historical Hurricane Tracks map allows you to view global hurricane data dating back as far as 1842. Using the map you can search and visualize hurricane data by storm name, location and by date. If you enter the name of a hurricane (for example 2012's Hurricane Sandy) you can view the hurricane's track on the map. Points along each hurricane's track allow you to view details about the wind speed and pressure for each day. A link is also provided to read a PDF of NOAA's storm report for each hurricane.

If you select the 'Hurricanes' option from the map menu then you can view all the historical hurricane tracks on one map. If you select the 'County Strikes' option you can view a choropleth map of U.S. coastal counties. The counties colored dark red have historically had more hurricane strikes than the counties colored with a lighter red.


This map of historical Hurricane and Tropical Cyclone Track Density uses Carto's Torque library to animate the track density of hurricanes and tropical cyclones from 2000-2013. The map uses data from the National Climatic Data Center - NOAA.

The Hurricane and Tropical Cyclone Track Density map doesn't allow you to explore individual hurricane tracks but the heatmap does reveal the areas of the world which are most prone to hurricanes and tropical cyclones. As the animation plays the seasonal nature of hurricanes and tropical cyclones around the world is also revealed by the rise and fall of storm activity on the map.

One Belt, One Road, Lots of Maps

Diplomats from countries around the world were in China over the weekend. Most of them were desperate to claim a share of the billions of dollars China plans to invest in its Belt and Road projects. China's ambitious One Belt, One Road strategy plans to connect Asia, the Middle East, Europe and Africa with a huge transport and oil & gas pipeline network.

An interactive map on Fortune magazine's website shows some of the rail, oil & gas pipelines and maritime connections that China has already constructed or plans to build. In effect this is just a static map which has been made interactive using Leaflet.js. However the map does show the scale of China's ambitious infrastructure plans. It also has a few markers where Fortune have provided a bit more detail on some of the more interesting projects under development.


The Fortune map was created using information from the Mercator Institute for China Studies. The Mercator Institute''s own map provides a more detailed overview of China's Planned Global Infrastructure Network. The map shows built and planned rail lines, oil & gas pipelines and ports with Chinese engagements.


In One Belt, One Road the Financial Times also explores some of the construction projects being created by China to transport people and goods around the world.

The map uses the Mapbox GL story map template to scroll and pan a map of the region to show some of the various railway lines, roads and gas pipelines that have already been constructed or are in the process of being built. These construction projects include gas pipelines between China and Central Asia, the China to Pakistan highway and new high speed railways throughout the region.


Back in 2013 the New York Times created its own story map template to take you on a journey along one of China's newly constructed railway lines, following the route of the old Silk Road.

Riding the New Silk Road follows the modern train route using a vertical scrolling map. The map is illustrated with photos and videos from one section of the modern route. As you scroll down the page you travel south along a strip map of the route. Animated polylines connect important locations on the route to the illustrative media in the map sidebar.

Mapping Urbanization in China

The New York Times has created an impressive mapped visualization showing the incredible rate of urbanization in China’s Pearl River Delta. Just thirty years ago this area was mainly rural farmland and waterways. Since then the city of Guangzhou and surrounding industrial towns have all grown at an incredibly rate. The city and towns have now all merged to create one huge industrial urban environment.

In Rising Waters Threaten China’s Rising Cities the NYT illustrates this growing urbanization with a map that shows how the natural environment has been built over during the last thirty years. As you scroll through the article the rust colored areas increase on the map as the years go by and the towns grow in size.

The NYT article examines some of the causes of the rise in flooding in the area. You only need to look at the number of waterways in the delta in the map above and the huge loss of the surrounding natural environment to realize one of the major causes of flooding in the Pearl River Delta.

Mapping China's Polluting Factories

Air pollution is a huge problem in China. Last year the American Association for the Advancement of Science reported that in 2013 air pollution killed 1.6 million people in China. One of the major causes of air pollution in the country is the large number of coal burning factories throughout China.

You can now see who the major air polluting culprits are in China on a new map of air pollution. The Institute of Public & Environmental Affairs' National Air Emissions interactive map shows the average hourly polluting rates of enterprises across China. Using the map you can find out which factories are responsible for the worst air pollution.

4,637 enterprises are being monitored in total. Each enterprise's map marker shows the latest recorded average hourly polluting value (mg/M3). You can also select a business' marker on the map to view more details, such as historical readings and how those readings relate to regulatory standards. The map's search facility includes options to filter the results shown by type of pollutant and to show only those factories exceeding or meeting regulatory air pollution standards.

Mapping China's Foreign Investment

Over the last month there has been a sudden surge of interactive maps exploring China's growing influence as a global super power.

In One Belt, One Road the Financial Times mapped some of the huge infrastructure projects China has undertaken to connect central Asia with the rest of the world. In Chinese Aid in the Pacific the Lowy Institute has mapped Chinese aid projects in the Pacific islands region. The Center for Strategic & International Studies has also mapped China's territorial and maritime claims in the South China Sea.

The New York Times has now mapped China's overseas investments from 2005-2013. The World According to China features a series of maps showing where and how much China has invested in other countries.

The maps show how Chinese investment has grown substantially since 2005. They also show how China has invested heavily in politically sensitive countries such as North Korea and Myanmar, countries western investors tend to avoid. China has also invested heavily in resource rich countries in Africa and the Middle East, with 'autocratic governments and struggling economies.

The result of this investment is that China has locked up many important oil and construction contracts in countries where Western governments would like to see economic reform and improving environmental standards. Thus making it harder for the west to push for political reforms in these countries.

China's New Silk Roads

China is busy building the infrastructure to connect central Asia with the rest of the world. In One Belt, One Road the Financial Times explores some of the construction projects being designed to transport people and goods within the region and further afield.

The map uses the Mapbox GL story map template to scroll and pan a map of the region to show the various railway lines, roads and gas pipelines that have already been constructed or are in the process of being built. These construction projects include gas pipelines between China and Central Asia, the China to Pakistan highway and new high speed railways throughout the region.


Back in 2013 the New York Times created its own story map template to take you on a journey along one of China's railway lines, following the route of the old Silk Road.

Riding the New Silk Road follows the modern train route using a vertical scrolling map. The map is illustrated with photos and videos from one section of the modern route. As you scroll down the page you travel south along a strip map of the route. Animated polylines connect important locations on the route to the illustrative media in the map sidebar.