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.