Thursday, February 18, 2021

Worldwide Cell Tower Distribution

The Cell Tower Distribution map reveals where cell towers are distributed around the globe. The map uses OpenCelliD, the world's largest open database of cell towers, to visualize the density of cell towers across the world. 

If you are afraid of your phone losing its connection then I would advise traveling in the Sahara, the Australian outback, in the Amazon, in Siberia, Greenland or the North of Canada. All these regions of the world appear to have very few cell towers. It is almost as if there is no demand for phone coverage in these areas..


You can compare the global cell tower distribution map with the actual global population using Duncan Smith's World Population Density interactive map. This map uses data from the Global Human Settlement Layer (GHSL) (by the European Commission JRC and CIESIN Columbia University) to visualize where people are living around the world. It turns out that there are actually very few people living in the Sahara, the Australian outback, in the Amazon, in Siberia, Greenland or the North of Canada.

The Cell Distribution Map doesn't show the locations of individual cell towers. However if you zoom-in on the OpenCelliD interactive map then you can actually see where individual cell towers are located. On this map you can even click on individual cell towers to discover a tower's radio type and range. Zooming out on the OpenCelliD map also reveals the global distribution of cell towers.

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