Hunger Maps

The Hunger Map by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations is a visual tool that illustrates the prevalence of undernourishment across the world. It visualizes the geographic distribution of hunger and helps monitor global food insecurity trends.

Hunger Map allows users to explore data across multiple geographic scales, including countries, subregions, and regions, providing a comprehensive view of where hunger is most prevalent and how it varies across different parts of the world. The Hunger Map also includes two main views 'Undernourishment' and 'Food Insecurity', and a timeline. The map’s timeline is set to a three-year average, which helps smooth out annual fluctuations and provide a more stable picture of food insecurity. This approach is particularly useful for assessing long-term trends and guiding policy decisions based on sustained patterns rather than temporary spikes or declines.

The World Food Programme's (WFP) HungerMap Live is a real-time, interactive visualization of hunger and food insecurity across 94 countries. At its core, the map highlights the prevalence of insufficient food consumption, using a color-coded system where red indicates areas of severe hunger and green shows relatively food-secure regions. 

The WFP map also shows levels of acute and chronic malnutrition, and the risk of inadequate micronutrient intake, offering a multidimensional view of food security. Beyond food consumption data, the map integrates key drivers and contextual factors such as conflict, climate hazards, and economic indicators like inflation, exchange rates, and trade balances. 

In regions where direct data collection is limited, WFP uses machine learning models trained on historic and environmental data to generate predictive estimates of food security. These estimates are updated frequently using inputs like rainfall, vegetation levels, and market conditions. This combination of actual and predicted data enables a dynamic, detailed understanding of hunger trends, helping humanitarian organizations and governments make more timely and informed decisions to respond to crises.