Skip to content
Image 1 of 6

Global trade flows

What is the big picture of how global trade flows have changed over the last decade? This project was developed for citibank to investigate and demonstrate insights about mid-term economic trends.

The application shows the development of imports and exports in 40 selected countries over the last decade. Users can play back the last ten years on a world map or an ordered display of the countries similar to beads on a string, sorted by trade volume, balance, or latitude.

Network map of 40 countries sized by trade volume, with colored arcs showing import and export flows, Saudi Arabia selected

The raw data was acquired from the UN comtrade database and comprise the self-reported import and export statistics for each country.

Detail panel with area charts of a country's trade volume (exports 169bn, imports 87.5bn) and growth rates from 2001 to 2010

In addition to the overview visualizations that allow perception of global patterns and shifts, precise values can be read from tooltips and a detail panel on the bottom.Finance buffs will appreciate how the detail panels show not only the absolute numbers over time, but also the relative change from year to year (first derivative), as well as the “change of the change” (second derivative).