Map of the Week: Why water is the stuff of life – and trade too
The technology might have changed, but the geography hasn't – and water is still key to global trading. Photo: TND
Your friendly neighbourhood Stats Guy is on parental leave for the next six weeks.
So instead of a weekly data-driven column, I am going to share some of my all-time favourite maps with you week after week.
This gem makes a simple point about geography and global trade that is still valid today.
Transporting stuff on water is usually the preferred way. In the olden days, horses and carts had nothing on boats with sails in terms of speed. Time is money after all.
Today, transporting stuff on planes is the fastest way but, in many cases, it’s too expensive. Money is money.
Shipping stuff on water is by far the cheapest. This is why countries with navigable rivers have an inbuilt economic booster – the US is probably the best example globally.
In our interconnected global economy, shipping matters more than ever. We saw during the heights of the COVID pandemic what happens when shipping stops.
Disruptions to free global maritime have terrible downstream consequences – keep this in mind when reading geopolitical news.
Demographer Simon Kuestenmacher is a co-founder of The Demographics Group. His columns, media commentary and public speaking focus on current socio-demographic trends and how these impact Australia. His latest book aims to awaken the love of maps and data in young readers. Follow Simon on Twitter (X), Facebook, LinkedIn for daily data insights in short format.
