Number of Nuclear Warheads by County
For today’s #30DayMapChallenge, my theme is red. For my subject, I decided to work with data on the total estimated number of nuclear warheads by country. Red, as a theme, can be used to effectively highlight an issue and nuclear weapons proliferation, coupled with the specter of nuclear war, is among the biggest existential threats to the ongoing survival of humanity and many of the species that we share this pale blue dot with. While it may be tempting to ignore the threat and pretend that it disappeared with the end of the Cold War, the possibility of one or more of these immoral weapons of mass destruction being used is ever present. Whether intentional or accidental, we are always only moments away from world changing nuclear conflict. A global nuclear conflict would result in unprecedented humanitarian aftermath that has no credible response.
While the threat of nuclear conflict affects every human being alive today, just nine countries hold all the world’s nuclear warheads, totaling an estimated 13,150. These countries include:
Russia
United States
France
China
United Kingdom
Israel
Pakistan
India
North Korea
To get started, I found data compiled by the Federation of American Scientists, along with an excellent map that they published showing the Status of World Nuclear Forces. The page I linked to also has a lot of great information about nuclear proliferation.
For my approach, I decided to map these countries and their warhead stockpiles by incorporating a cartographic symbology technique called dot density. Essentially, I took the value of the total estimated number of nukes per county and used the dot density technique to create an equivalent number of equally sized dots that were randomly distributed inside the borders of each county that has nuclear weapons. For my map’s symbology, I choose a firefly red with a black background and glowing country boundaries and white lettering, labeling countries, and their total estimated nuclear stockpile. The visual effect of seeing all the world’s nukes, represented as points on a map, is powerful and troubling. I deliberately left non-nuclear weapons holding countries off this map to emphasize the effect.
Just as an aside, it is important to note that while this map shows countries with nuclear weapons, the actual global distribution of where these weapons are deployed or stored looks different from the map and likely encompasses a vast area. The United States Nuclear Triad policy, as an example, is based on having nuclear payload delivery platforms on land, in the air and at sea, and the US has these weapons deployed in all three domains. Other nuclear powers have mirror policies.