![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.lib.utexas.edu\/maps\/world_maps\/illicit_trafficking_2000.jpg\")
<\/a>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 Regardless of the morbid content it holds, the chosen map is fascinating for charting black market activity worldwide.\u00a0 While there is a distinctive lack of common cartographic labels for countries, the map remains intricate through projecting trade routes of four illegal commodities and growing areas for two supply plants.\u00a0\u00a0 The data itself is aged, being released in 2000 as a component of a National Intelligence Council release.\u00a0 A collaborative effort of the NIC, CIA, and non-government scientists from universities or research institutions researched the original product. \u00a0Their report is designed as a projection for the state of the world in 2015, encompassing the rapidly expanding population of megacities in addition to predicting availability of water.\u00a0 The Illicit Trafficking map is created to illuminate the international state of black market trade while simultaneously inundating the reader with the scale of the problem.<\/p>\nThe map\u2019s data strongly favors the visual and symbolic rather than textual.\u00a0 Four different colors represent cocaine, heroin, illegal migrants, and women & children, with several hubs around the world for a mixed variety of these products.\u00a0 Using both intuition and a labeled world map, Columbia is a nexus for cocaine production.\u00a0 In creating the map, the researchers used an overwhelming network of arrows to emphasize the strength of the drug trade extending across the borders of the world.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0Additionally instead of arrows, there are cores of growth scattered throughout the continents.\u00a0 Coca is plentiful in the Columbian region, bringing logic to the mass of green arrows that form a spider web across Central American and the Atlantic Ocean to both Asia and Europe.\u00a0 The northeast border of South America appears to have a very enthusiastic cocaine trade, for it is the only region solidly colored in on the map.\u00a0 However, following the same path as cocaine into the United States is the influx of illegal migrants from South America. When juxtaposing these two routes the immigrants seem rather docile next to the network of illegal drug trade, highlighting one of the map\u2019s flawed representations.\u00a0 To consider illegal migrants as having the same paths and mindset as drug traders is detrimental to their population.\u00a0 In addition to the flow out of South America, the southeast region of Asia is brimming with opium poppy plant farms, giving some validity the area\u2019s nickname as the \u201cGolden Triangle\u201d of heroin.\u00a0 The trade of heroin can be traced across Asia and the Pacific Ocean.\u00a0 However the Triangle is not limited to simply the export of heroin, as the routes of women and children spread up to Japan and cross the Indian Ocean.\u00a0 Again comparing to a traditional world map, another major port of black market trade can be found in Nigeria, where there is a plentiful flow of cocaine and heroin from South America and Asia, and an appropriately energetic export to the United States\u2019 east coast and central Europe.<\/p>\n
These frequent comparisons to a standard world map highlight a major flaw in the structure of the NIC map.\u00a0 The mass of detailed arrows is an excellent consolidation of massive collections of data, yet their effectiveness diminishes without country data to accompany it. Therefore without consulting outside sources, the map is useful at only observing broad regional trends.\u00a0 For example, Germany appears on the map unnamed, but a repository for all four trade factors examined.\u00a0 As a result when referring to trade only generalizations such as \u201ccentral Europe\u201d can be used to quantify the trade routes.\u00a0 Leaving the country names off the map was a deliberate choice by the group of cartographers in construction, intending to avoid rendering the map excessively cluttered.\u00a0 Even in its current state it is difficult to read at times, in particular at the most active trade sites in Central America and Eastern Europe.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0Their choice is enigmatic, adding a layer of confusion for the sake of reducing potential confusion.\u00a0 For Central America in particular, the diverging mass of arrows used highlights the cartographer\u2019s intentions to emphasize factors that the map\u2019s supporting U.S. government institutions believe to be the most critical.\u00a0 In the end their decisions are justified, leaving the map legible and coherent after labeling only the oceans.\u00a0 While leaving the oceans labeled is likely a result of having more working space, it is also a reflection of desires to express the international scale of this trade and the effect it has on each continent.<\/p>\n
In creating this map, the NIO, CIA, and the assisting institutions had precise intentions of what were necessary targets to highlight.\u00a0 As a result highly addictive drug production and distribution was illustrated alongside human trafficking and illegal migration.\u00a0 While the three primary trades are vastly different from each other, this illuminates the logic behind their choices.\u00a0 For example, if all trade routes were of drugs the map would have little depth, being pigeonholed into a preexisting mass of War on Drugs propaganda.\u00a0 Instead the audience is presented with a rich map enumerating the government\u2019s foci of primary interest for the future.\u00a0 The NIO\u2019s map is carefully detailed and intricate, emphasizing that the span of the black market is global, crossing borders and touching nearly every major country.<\/p>\n
Works Cited<\/p>\n
US Government. “Current World Illicit Trafficking.” University of Texas Libraries<\/em>. N.p., n.d. Web. 19 Sept. 2014.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Historical Atlas of the Holocaust<\/em>. N.p.: Macmillan, 1996. 252. Web. 3 Oct. 2014. <http:\/\/we4mf3mv5e.search.serialssolutions.com\/docview\/38906638?accountid=14731>.<\/p>\n The atlas encompasses the entire span of the Holocaust, starting from the earliest actions of Nazi Germany into their final days.\u00a0 Some unique maps included are different from the traditional Allied perspective, and instead include some Axis maps.\u00a0 One in particular details the size of the Jewish population remaining in every European country.<\/p>\n Esposito, Vincent J. The West Point Atlas of American Wars. New York: Praeger, 1959. Print.<\/p>\n This is one of the older texts that was readily available in the maps section of the library.\u00a0\u00a0 True to its military background, it gave extraordinarily detailed accounts of United States warfare.\u00a0 The information encompasses even the civil war, where troop movements were charted.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 Regardless of the morbid content it holds, the chosen map is fascinating for charting black market activity worldwide.\u00a0 While there is a distinctive lack of common cartographic labels for countries, the map remains … Continue reading