How 1 Photo From Space Explains ALL of History

[Music] this video is made possible by curiosity stream and nebula watch another full-length companion video to this one in my ongoing modern conflict series that explains the entire course of the battle of aleppo during the syrian civil war which you can access by signing up for the curiosity stream nebula bundle deal for less than 15 a year at curiositystream.com real life lore you've probably seen a map of the world before that looks a lot like this a map of the world's 195 mostly recognized countries these maps show the arbitrary lines created by humans over the centuries that divide us they show the boundaries of nations and the locations of cities and over the past several decades this map has rarely changed the last time that it formally did so was more than a decade ago in july of 2011 when south sudan was born as the world's most recent country every political map of the world produced in the decades since that date has largely remained static and unchanged and as a result if these are the only kinds of maps that you've ever been looking at you would have failed to notice the true enormous and unprecedented rate of changes that have been taking place all across the globe over the past 10 years and in order to see that change more clearly you've got to switch to a different map showing our planet at night this is the black marble a beautiful map created by researchers at nasa using thousands of separate composite images that have all been combined into a single hole taken from a satellite specifically designed to sense the world for man-made lights nothing tells us more about the spread of humanity across the planet than the patterns made by the glittering lights of our cities and if you know where the right places are to look this map can pretty much tell you all in just a single image the entire history and story of mankind let's begin by looking at the real shapes and patterns of where people within countries live like here in afghanistan on a political map afghanistan has a very unique and complex looking shape but viewed on the map of lights at night the true and simpler pattern of where afghanistan's people live is revealed in reality afghanistan's 32 million people live largely in a gigantic ring with a single circular highway connecting most of the country's major cities and population centers all together this is largely because in the center of this ring are some of the tallest mountains found anywhere on the planet with some of the peaks rising to as high as 24 000 feet above sea level the interior is just too harsh of an environment for large-scale cities to be built on and thus the ring around them is where most afghans actually call home strangely the most comparable pattern of civilization to afghanistan's ring of people can be found across the world over the atlantic on iceland similar to afghanistan the center of iceland is full of highlands and harsh cold rugged terrain that isn't ideal for founding large-scale settlements on meanwhile the island's coast has warmer temperatures and provides easier access to fishing and trade and so as a result iceland's 366 000 people live largely in a ring around the island's interior along the coast and about half of them live in the bright glowing dot of the capital city reykjavik let's now take a look at another fascinating population pattern by traveling across the world again to the south american continent and focusing here over central argentina during the daytime you'd barely notice any signs of human settlements here at all and might even think that you're looking at an abandoned part of the world but flip the switch to night and the story looks very different indeed now you'll notice rows and rows of nearly perfectly spaced dots of light that betray the presence of precisely planned and organized human settlements these dots are each a town and they appear roughly every 30 to 50 kilometers apart from each other because they're all found across railroads and they all grew up as railway stations if you contrast the map of the area at night with this map of the argentinian railroad network from the beginning of the 20th century you can see how this pattern viewed from space became the way that it is today over in russia a similar pattern can be viewed by the continuous chain of lights spanning from moscow across thousands of kilometers to the east through asia these sparkling lights of russian civilization across eurasia trace the trans-siberian railway the longest railway line in the world that connects moscow in the west with vladivostok in the east over a distance of more than 9 000 kilometers and in between the two cities the vast railway system connects hundreds of russian towns across eurasia that are easily spotted in the darkness the initial railway was constructed and finished during the tsarist times in 1916 and has been almost continuously expanded upon from there ever since today the rails extend from russia into mongolia china and north korea and later on this century there are even plans to connect tokyo and japan to the network via a series of bridges from honshu to hokkaido from hokkaido to sakhalin and from sakhalin to the asian mainland one of the most fascinating areas of the world to focus over at night is australia of course the lights of australian civilization are small for such a massive area of land relegated almost entirely to the more habitable and easier to live on east coast the city of perth seen right here in the west is the most isolated major city of over 2 million people anywhere in the world and it's so much easier to see how that's the case on this map the nearest other significant city with a population of more than 100 000 people is adelaide over here and that's 2100 kilometers away the 70 of australia in between the lights of cities is covered by the outback desert vast and inhospitable and nearly empty of people save for this small speck of light directly in the continent's center this is the town of alice springs population of 26 000 people and directly next to alice springs is pine gap a joint united states australian intelligence base that is run by the cia and the nsa with more than 800 employees the reason why the cia and the nsa have a base in the middle of the australian outback is because of its prime geographic significance the base here controls and operates american spy satellites as they pass over this third of the globe including china north korea the asian part of russia and the middle east theoretically the base that controls all of them could have been placed anywhere here but the dead center of the australian continent was chosen as the singular best location for it because it's thousands of kilometers away from the ocean in every direction in the middle of nowhere inside of a very friendly country and as a result the location is simply far too remote and inland for enemy ships passing in international waters nearby to intercept any of the signals and thus that's why you have a lone isolated dot of light in the middle of a sea of darkness in australia meanwhile the united states itself has a very interesting population pattern as well revealed by the presence or in this case the absence of lights you'll notice that america is divided between two halves of roughly equal size the east a bastion of bright lights and the west an archipelago of bright islands scattered across a sea of darkness and the line that separates the two sides flows almost perfectly straight just to the west of san antonio austin fort worth oklahoma city wichita omaha sioux falls and fargo this line largely follows the 100th meridian line of longitude and it still largely marks to this day in the 21st century the beginning of the american western frontier with few large settlements scattered to the west beyond it the reason for why this pattern continues to exist is because the 100th meridian roughly marks the geographic boundary between the wetter and more humid climate found in the east and the drier more arid climate of the west moist air coming in from the gulf of mexico rarely travels any further to the west than this line while at the same time the gigantic rocky mountains chain casts a vast rain shadow across the landscape that prevents additional moisture from blowing in from the pacific and so as a result the agriculture in the west has always been forced to rely much more heavily upon irrigation technologies and has always been less efficient than the farms in the east which means less food and less people over the centuries of development geography often dictates where people end up settling down as in egypt here at night you can easily trace the course of the nile river through the country as the brilliant lights of egyptian civilization trace its outline around 97 million people live within just a few kilometers of the nile banks inside of egypt making it one of the most densely populated regions in the world and causing the entire river to be easily visible from space at night a very similar pattern of lights can also be observed far away in pakistan along the indus river just like the nile the indus has been a center of civilization for thousands of years as people have farmed and tilled the river's rich and fertile floodplains in spite of the arid conditions that make it difficult to grow food anywhere else in the rest of the region now in the 21st century the bright lights of pakistan's modern cities make it easy to trace the river's course from space as many of the country's biggest cities are clustered across it while the indus is an example of a clear geographic feature that humans have adapted around this wavy line of lights directly nearby to the east is the exact opposite this is actually the international border that divides pakistan from india an arbitrary line that was created by the british when they divided the two countries and granted them both independence more than 70 years ago without any mountains or rivers to mark the border during the day back then this line only existed on papers on maps and within mines but now in the 21st century it can be clearly seen from space and is very real because india and pakistan are bitter geopolitical rivals who have fought four wars against each other in the past few decades india citing security reasons opted to install thousands of kilometers of floodlights across the entire length of the border to keep it all well illuminated at night which makes it perhaps the easiest and the most obvious artificial man-made creation to spot from space meanwhile within india it's really the change in lights over time that have been the most fascinating back in the year 2000 only about 60 of the indian population had any access to electricity by 2012 that number had increased to about 80 percent but that still meant that 20 of india or about 253 million people still had no access to electricity as a result the nighttime map of india at the time looked a lot like this but 2014 saw the election of prime minister narendra modi who ran on a campaign promise of bringing electricity to every village in india thus by 2016 when nasa created the latest edition of the black marble photo the lights across the country increased dramatically to look like this as more than 125 million indians gained electricity for the very first time and all in a span of only four short years this became one of the greatest achievements ever made in the entire history of energy and now in 2022 with nearly 100 of the population having access to electricity india is among the brightest countries seen anywhere on the planet's surface immediately next door china with a population of more than 1.4 billion people is also one of the brightest countries in the world but the change in lights across china over the same time period tells a very different story than the one in india if you take a look at the map of lights from 2012 and then fast forward to 2016 you'll notice nearly everywhere a dimming of lights across the countryside and the intensification of brightness coming from the cities for decades now all across the world people nearly everywhere have been moving from the countryside into the cities for better access to jobs markets education and healthcare but nowhere on the planet has this general trend been more acute than in china where just since 1975 nearly half of the entire population around 715 million people have abandoned the chinese countryside for the cities back in 1975 china was still overwhelmingly a rural and agrarian society with only 17.4 percent of the population residing within urban cities but then in the late 70s and the early 80s the chinese government began doing things differently they created what they called special economic zones and at first 18 cities along the coast where the taxes were less and where there was less state oversight from the centralized communist government these zones attracted a lot of foreign businesses to set up their operations and with the plentiful new jobs they provided came in workers from the countryside the very first of these zones was the town of shenzhen which at the time in 1980 was a relatively sleepy town of only 300 000 people today only a little more than 40 years later shenzhen has exploded into a global tech hub of metropolis of more than 13 million now in 2022 china boasts more than 312 urban areas with populations of more than 500 000 people most of which you've probably never even heard of for comparison the united states has only 96 of these large urban areas meaning that there are today vastly more urban chinese people living in cities than americans which was not at all the case back in 1975. the change in lights across china in the four years between 2012 and 2016 shows this greater historical trend very clearly in just that short time frame more than 81 million people about the population of germany left the chinese countryside and moved into the cities the brightest of all these areas and the brightest single spot anywhere on the earth's surface is right here the pearl river delta a conglomeration of close by cities like hong kong shenzhen guangzhou and zhuhai that if considered a single urban metropolitan area would be the largest anywhere in the world with a population of about 70 million people in other words half of the population of russia all living together in a single small intensely bright metropolis ever since the year 1879 when the light bulb was first patented by thomas edison the globe has been growing brighter and brighter with every passing year from space as more and more of humanity has come online and gained access to electricity today more than 90 of humanity has electricity the highest figure that's ever been known but at the same time more than 759 million people worldwide still do not have any access to it and more than 90 percent of those people live inside of one of the darkest regions seen anywhere on the planet still here sub-saharan africa there are some areas of intense brightness here to be sure like in the major cities like lagos nairobi johannesburg and cape town but by and large sub-saharan africa appears far darker than it should be not because it's empty but because there are still 683 million people who live here without any access to electricity the country of burundi has the lowest overall percentage of people who have access to electricity anywhere in the world at only 11 percent of the population meanwhile the democratic republic of the congo or drc is the country with the highest overall number of people still remaining without electricity 72 and a half million more than the population of france these millions of people still use solid fuels like wood for heating and for light and as a result their presence is invisible to the light-seeking satellites of nasa and the areas they inhabit appear empty and thus the drc in particular and sub-saharan africa in general is the largest area in the inhabited world still remaining that from the perspective of space appears largely as it has for the past several millions of years but just like how the absence of lights doesn't necessarily mean the absence of people the presence of lights doesn't necessarily indicate their presence either the north sea is a large body of water around europe and as you're probably aware oceans generally don't tend to have a lot of people but when you focus over the sea at night you'll notice dozens of little lights sprinkled across the surface rather than representing human settlements these lights betray the presence of the roughly 170 offshore oil and gas rigs that are operated in the sea by norway the uk and the netherlands oil and gas wells emit a lot of light because as they drill they flare gas when you have a lot of gas flaring going on in a concentrated area their presence is revealed at night from the sky and using this as a guide you can clearly see where the world's most important sources of oil and gas can be found besides for the sites in the north sea you can see lights in the eastern mediterranean off the coasts of egypt and israel representing the offshore gas rigs that are operated by both countries you can see an extensive chain of lights across the caspian sea flowing out from the capital city of azerbaijan baku where the very first offshore oil platforms in the world were originally constructed and of course the area around the persian gulf appears bright enough to almost be its own galaxy owing to the extensive oil and gas fields across iran iraq kuwait saudi arabia bahrain qatar and the united arab emirates the waters of the persian gulf itself are spectacularly lit up with more than 145 offshore rigs including the ones around here the north field split between qatar and iran which is by far the single largest natural gas field ever discovered anywhere on the planet lights tell stories everywhere you see them but the absence of lights can tell just as strong of a tail for another notable area we have to travel back across asia to the korean peninsula where the difference in lights between north and south is as great as the difference between night and day itself save for the capital of pyongyang north korea is almost entirely dark despite having a population of nearly 26 million people the border in the north with china can be clearly seen by the zigzagged patterns of bright chinese cities over on the other side of it at the very same time the southern border with south korea can be clearly seen lit up in its entirety from space as well this is the most heavily militarized border anywhere in the entire world that artificially cuts the korean peninsula in half and divides the democratic regime in the south from the totalitarian regime in the north guarded by millions of soldiers and land mines on either side as a result the entire border is basically a gigantic fortress that is completely covered by floodlights at night cementing the old arbitrary ceasefire line that ended the korean war back in 1953 as a permanent and clearly visible man-made feature when viewing the world from above at night as if it were instead a major natural geographic feature and right across that border to the south is seoul the largest and brightest city in south korea with more than 25 million inhabitants almost as many people as live in the entirety of north korea combined south korea's tremendously bright lights are indicative of the modern developed and prosperous nation that is the world's eighth largest consumer of electricity meanwhile the darkness of north korea is indicative of the inefficient totalitarian fascist state that only has an electricity rate of 48.5 of their population meaning that more than 13 million north koreans continue having no access to power north and south korea's man-made political shapes are therefore both clearly visible from space and this view puts in a perspective the more practical reality that south korea is effectively despite being connected by land to the rest of asia an island surrounded by darkness on all four sides as every other island in the world is but the most startling change in light seen anywhere in the world over the past few years has been back over on the other side of asia within the middle east in the past decade three countries in the middle east have undergone devastating civil wars that have claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands of people yemen iraq and syria and in the time between 2012 and 2016 when the two black marble photos were compiled much has changed in yemen the lights have gone out across conflict zones since the civil war began in 2014 and after nearly 400 000 deaths in iraq isis has been long since defeated but from 2012 to 2016 you can clearly see the lights fading to darkness in all of the areas that they captured and occupied and then worst of all there are the effects of war that can be clearly seen from space above syria as the civil war in the country intensified and the catastrophic destruction began growing greater as much as 80 percent of the lights in the country went out in just the four years between 2012 and 2016. the most significant changes of all came around the city of aleppo the largest city inside of syria and one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world as the four years between 2012 and 2016 went by the lights across the city went out and that tells us a very very grim story for in those four years one of the most important devastating brutal and catastrophic battles of the entire 21st century was fought as syrian government and syrian rebel armies clashed the city was put under siege and the war of attrition that followed resembled the battle of stalingrad from the second world war both sides deployed chemical weapons within the city against the other the syrian government committed indiscriminate attacks using devastatingly destructive barrel bombs the russian air force got involved with their own airstrikes and rampant war crimes were committed almost continuously after four years of fighting the horrific battle that took place here transformed into one of the longest sieges in modern warfare and one of the bloodiest battles of the 21st century with tens of thousands of lives that were lost with an overwhelming amount of them being civilians and tens of thousands of buildings that were destroyed alongside them aleppo is the city that has been most destroyed by warfare in the 21st century and it will never again be the same as it was before without a doubt the battle of aleppo is one of the most critical and fascinating battles of the 21st century to understand but unfortunately if i made a video about it on youtube there's no way that it would ever get monetized and there's probably no way that you would ever see it so instead i created yet another full-length companion video to this one in my ongoing modern conflict series that's about the same length as this video that covers the entire story of aleppo and syria's stalingrad from beginning to end and uploaded it directly to nebula which as you've probably heard by now is home to tons of exclusive ad-free content like my entire modern conflict series with eight other additional full-length videos that you can go and watch right now detailing the ongoing war between russia and ukraine the soviet invasion of afghanistan the u.s iran conflict the wars of saddam's iraq against kuwait and iran the korean conflict and many others of course the reason why all of these videos are only available on nebula is because they just would never work here on youtube and never be viewed here because of the way the site works on the other hand nebula is a different platform without an algorithm and without any ads it's just a platform about great and unique content that is made by great and independent educational creators with plenty of other unique exclusive bonus projects from other creators you probably already know like wendover productions half as interesting tier zoo real engineering tom scott and so many others the best way to get access to nebula and all of this incredible content is definitely through the amazing curiosity stream nebula bundle deal and with its current sales price it's less than 15 a year to get full access to both sites and curiosity stream has some phenomenal stuff that you'll probably enjoy as well like hevel a nearly two hour long documentary about michael enright a hollywood actor who gave up his career to go to syria and volunteer with the kurdish ypg to fight against isis including never-before-seen helmet-cam video that he took himself during the battles that were fought there and actual interrogations of isis fighters if you want to see a documentary of what it was actually like in syria on the ground during those years when the lights faded this is the documentary for you to go and watch right now i really can't recommend it enough and i genuinely don't know about a better deal that exists anywhere in streaming you get two streaming sites both with content you'll actually watch and enjoy and all for less than 15 a year at the current sales price but what's even more signing up will actually help countless independent educational creators beyond just real life lore so please make sure to do so by clicking this button that's here on screen right now which will take you directly to curiositystream.comreallifelore to sign up or by following the link that's down below in the description and as always thank you so much for watching

Channel: RealLifeLore

Views: 3,356,622

Keywords: real life lore, real life lore maps, real life lore geography, real life maps, world map, world map is wrong, world map with countries, world map real size, map of the world, world geography, geography, geography (field of study), facts you didn’t know

Id: ki-hoy-3ea8

Length: 26min 15sec (1575 seconds)

Published: Mon Jan 31 2022