Global Flight Paths by Michael Markieta

Infographics are sexy. They are such a beautiful way of displaying large amounts of data in an understandable fashion. This project by Michael Markieta was spotted on the BBC News Picture Gallery – always a good source for nice-looking images.


Michael used open source data – available at openflights.org – to help produce these fantastic visualisations. The data shows the flight paths of 58,288 flights in 2011 and is a cracking example of what can be done with open-source, big data. The artist points out that some interesting patterns of settlement and urbanisation can be seen in the infographic. For example, "the United States has flights arriv­ing and depart­ing all over the coun­try, where as Canada has most flights located along the south­ern Canada-USA bor­der (with a few con­ti­nen­tal flights trav­el­ling into the North)."


A more in depth analysis can be found on Michael's blog, along with the tools and skills necessary to build a map of your own. What's brilliant about all of this is that it is (mostly) open source software!