Lighting Pattern
Check out this night view of the world, that shows which areas are lit up: Notice the contrast between how India (and Japan) are lit up in their entirety whereas China dims from its east to the center and then just goes dark? This blog isn’t to gloat. Rather, it is about the “why” behind the China lighting pattern. The fact that parts of China are uninhabitable deserts is only part of the answer. In his book, Divided , Tim Marshall explains the major reasons. From Genghis Khan onwards, the famous Silk Road route was on the ascendant. It traversed from China through Central Asia to the Middle East and modern-day Turkey. Surely, that should have resulted in the parts of China along the route, and regions radiating outwards from it, to be richer and more developed, and thus better lit up in our map, right? So why is that not the case today? The reversal in economic priority from the land routes to the sea lanes happened not by choice, says Marshall. Inste...