Aleppo in London & Berlin

The city of Aleppo has faced a colossal scale of damage since the start of the Syrian civil war. 65.61% of buildings in the Al Aqabeh neighborhood have been damaged by the fighting. In 18 of the city's other neighborhoods over 40% of buildings have been damaged.

While these figures are shocking it is still hard for those of us unfamiliar with the city to conceive of the scale of this destruction. That is why Berlin developer Hans Hack has created maps of London and Berlin in which these cities are shown with similar levels of damage to that seen by Aleppo. Reprojected Destruction is an interactive map which attempts to portray the scale of destruction in Aleppo by overlaying this destruction on two of Europe's most well known cities.

To create the London and Berlin maps Hans Hack used data from the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR). UNITAR used satellite imagery to work out the percentage of buildings destroyed in Aleppo. Reprojected Destruction uses the result of this research to present maps of Berlin and London in which the same percentage of buildings are shown as having been destroyed.

The geography of the destruction in Aleppo has also been partly reflected in the Berlin and London maps. The buildings shown in these two maps have mostly been randomly selected. However western neighborhoods in both maps are less damaged to reflect how the New Aleppo district has suffered little damage. Eastern neighborhoods in the European city maps also have a higher percentage of damaged buildings to reflect the fact that the east of Aleppo has been the most damaged part of the city during the civil war.