The Dutch web development Studio TecToys built http://www.conflicthistory.com, a map and timeline of all important human conflicts. The base data for the visualization comes from Freebase and is enriched with Wikipedia content. The timeline lets you slice the data at adjustable interval widths. I’m not sure, just how exhaustive and geographically un-biased the coverage of the data is, it certainly looks impressive on the map. Naturally, the geographic scope of the conflicts on the map varies also with the world regions known to humankind at a given time.
From geographic and conflict research literature I know that people try to link violent conflicts to the presence of certain social and environmental factors, the latter being much more easily measured, usually. I faintly remember reading an article that linked the likelihood of guerilla activity to the topography of a region. Maybe some of these models are a bit too simplistic at times, but nevertheless I’d be interested to explore the data of such a study in a form similar to Conflict History.
(via information aesthetics)