Visualizing Europe's Migrant Crisis

This is an astonishing visualisation of the refugee crisis https://t.co/cB7FnOGc0u pic.twitter.com/8sfYSVYbF0

— i100 (@thei100) October 27, 2015

You’ll want to visit i100 for full details and an interactive version of the map, but here’s a little more:

Each moving point on the map represents 25 people. If you are viewing on a mobile device, each point represents 50 people (for performance reasons). You can hover over each country to produce nation specific views, if you wish.

The United Nations estimates that half a million Syrian refugees have sought asylum in Europe between April 2011 and September 2015. Standing very tighly together, they would fit on 8 soccer fields.

Only a small fraction of refugees fleeing their homes make it to Europe. The UN has registered four million Syrian refugees in Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq, Egypt and North Africa. Most of them live in refugee camps close to the border. They would fit on 59 soccer fields.

Seeing such a large flow of “migrants” to Sweden and other points north reminded me emotionally of the first time I started seeing illegal alien crime stories in this country, coming out of places like Iowa and South Carolina. You expect to see boat people in Italy or Greece. You expect Los Angeles and San Antonio to have trouble with criminal illegal aliens.

But Sweden? Iowa? Things are out of control.