World News Map

Data source

This map uses the GDELT Events 2.0 dataset, which automatically scans news articles from around the world every 15 minutes and extracts political events — who did what to whom, and where. Each dot on the map represents one news article in which a political event was identified.

News coverage bias

GDELT's coverage is not geographically neutral. The dataset is dominated by English-language and Western media — primarily outlets from North America, the UK, and Australia. Regions with less English-language media presence (Central Africa, Central Asia, parts of Latin America) are significantly underrepresented.

Event categories

Events are classified using the CAMEO coding scheme, a political science framework that only captures actor-to-actor political interactions.

Violence & Conflict — armed fighting, assault, mass violence
Protest — demonstrations, strikes, civil unrest
Threats & Coercion — threats, shows of force, sanctions, coercion
Demands & Rejection — demands, disapproval, rejection, investigations
Diplomacy & Cooperation — statements, consultations, aid, agreements

Goldstein scale

The Goldstein sub-mode colors countries by their weighted average Goldstein score — ranging from −10 (most destabilizing) to +10 (most cooperative). The score comes from the CAMEO event type: negative values describe actions that increase tension, such as threats, coercion, protests, violence, or armed conflict; positive values describe cooperative actions, such as consultations, aid, agreements, mediation, or yielding. A country's displayed value is an event-count-weighted average, so it summarizes the overall direction of reported political interactions, not whether the country itself is good or bad.

> +4 — strongly cooperative
+2 to +4 — cooperative
0 to +2 — slightly cooperative
−1 to 0 — neutral
−3 to −1 — conflictual
−6 to −3 — very conflictual
< −6 — highly destabilizing

News activity coloring

In News Activity, countries are colored by how many articles are associated with them in the current period. The scale is logarithmic so very active countries do not overwhelm the map. Lighter blues mean fewer articles, and warmer colors mean more articles.

Media tone

The Tone sub-mode colors countries by the average media sentiment of articles in which that country appears as the initiating actor. Tone is derived from the wording of the source article: higher values mean more positive language, lower values mean more negative language, and values near zero are comparatively neutral. It measures the article's language, not the severity of the political event, so a cooperative event can still have negative tone if the article is written in a critical or crisis-focused way.

> +2 — positive coverage
0 to +2 — slightly positive
−2 to 0 — slightly negative
−5 to −2 — negative
< −5 — very negative

Other controls

Country search — fly to a country; in Political Landscape mode opens its Goldstein time series.
Most Active — top 5 countries for the current view and period. Click any to fly there.
Media Origins — news outlet countries inferred from domain TLDs.
Hybrid mode — shows a heatmap at low zoom levels that transitions to individual clusters as you zoom in.

Data provided by the GDELT Project under CC BY 3.0.