A bad earthquake at once destroys the oldest associations: the world, the very emblem of all that is solid, has moved beneath our feet like a crust over a fluid; one second of time has conveyed to the mind a strange idea of insecurity, which hours of reflection would never have created.
Charles Darwin in: Richard V. Lee “Darwin’s Earthquake” Sourced from Darwin’s Journal of Researches, p. 898
This map allows to understand global earthquake intensity in relation to today’s population distribution. The gridded cartogram gives every person on the planet an equal amount of space while highlighting the most densely populated spaces in relation to the earthquake risk (calculated via the intensity of earthquakes recorded since 2150 BC).
The map shows how much of the global earthquake risk is situated in very populated regions leaving many people vulnerable and at risk. Among the largest populations at risk are those who live on the islands in East and South-East Asia, such as Japan and Indonesia. Other more densely populated threatened regions include Italy, Greece, and Turkey in the Mediterranean, or Mexico and California in North and Central America.
