Visualizing Empires Decline

The decline of the largest maritime empires of the 19th and 20th centuries using a ludic and organic metaphor that incorporates mitosis-like spilts. The music was kindly composed for this narrative by CHOP WOOD.

This is an information visualization project that narrates the decline of the British, French, Portuguese and Spanish empires during the 19th and 20th centuries. These empires were the main maritime empires in terms of land area during the referred centuries. The land area of the empires and its former colonies is continuously represented in the simulation. The size of the empires varies during the simulation as they gain, or lose, territories. The graphic representation forms were selected to attain a narrative that depicts the volatility, instability and dynamics of the expansion and decline of the empires.