This month, NASA’s Landsat department and the U.S. Geological Survey collaborated with CNN to offer the public an impressive tool that reveals just how dramatically Earth has been changed by the human population.

The tool, provided exclusively at CNN, lets you drag a white verticle bar left and right across a satellite view of select locations on planet Earth.

With Each map, you will see areas that went from barren, filled with nothing but wildlife, or even open water, transformed into an area of concrete roads, new homes, bridges, and everything else that comes along with “civilization”.

In some cases, you can see how humanity has encroached upon someo of the most serene, beautiful landscapes, transforming that land into one of houses, shopping malls and parking lots. In some cases, such as in Dubai, you can even see civilization expand right out into the ocean.









One Decade of Growth

The highly detailed maps include locations like Dubai, Las Vegas, Tehran, Istanbul, Tokyo and several others.

The CNN page that presents all of the map states that there is an “epic migration” of people migrating from rural areas into the cities. In fact, according to CNN, since 2008, the majority of the Earth’s population live in cities.

However, as the maps show, while this migration might reduce the number of outlying buildings and structures in rural areas, it has led to a dramatic concentration of humanity in those cities. That has caused a gradual spread – urban sprawl – of those cities into a larger and larger area.

The “images from space” presentation presents the transformation of those cities over the course of a decade, or in some cases several decades.

The left map is further back in time and the right is more recent. By sliding the center bar from the right to the left, you can see how significantly the landscape changed due to population growth in cities.

The most impressive map is definitely Dubai. As you can see from the maps below, Dubai has gone through tremendous transformation over the last decade. The date on the left satellite image is 2000, and the right is 2010.

As you can see, there is clear evidence of concentrated civilization along the water’s edge, and in some areas urban sprawl has already made somewhat of an impact. However, in the 2010 image, you can see just how dramatic that impact was. Numerous structures now extend out into the ocean, like Palm Jumeirah, with its 17 constructed sandy fronds.

The same transformation can be seen in the deserts and mountains of Las Vegas. In the 1984 satellite imagery, and with man-made structures highlighted in green, you can gauge the size of the city – home of the “Vegas Strip”.

By 2011, the city and surrounding communities have exploded well beyond double the size that it was in 1984. Vegas is not a booming metropolis that extends from the mountains on the East to the mountains on the West, and everywhere in between.

Another impressive map comparison is Tokyo, with the “before” map from 1989 showing decent-sized expanses of green area.

However, the “after” photo from 2011 shows a deepening, dark mass of civilization, obliterating all of that green in the span of 22 years.

It is a remarkable and very real piece of evidence showing the dramatic effects of civilization on planet Earth.

Check out the maps and do your own before and after comparisons. Do you see anything else remarkable about the changes that have taken place? Share your thoughts in the comments section below.