How Facebook connections mirror old empires



EIGHT years ago Facebook launched as an online social network connecting a small college community from a dorm room at Harvard University. Today the company has 845m active users across the globe and a wealth of data. One aspect of these data, which Facebook has shared with The Economist, shows a rough correlation between current global Facebook friendships and the old boundaries of once-mighty European empires.

The maps below rank 214 countries according to the strength of their ties to Britain, France, Spain and Portugal respectively. The darker the blue the higher the fraction of foreign Facebook connections with the imperial power in question. (Facebook has not shared the underlying percentage data, just the ranking.) These closely correspond to countries or territories which were, whether wholly or in part, at one point under British, French, Spanish or Portuguese rule, as seen in the bottom set of maps.

Australia, New Zealand and swathes of east Africa hold the strongest ties to Britain. West African Facebookers have most connections with France. Spanish-speaking Latin America is most strongly tied to Spain. Brazilians remain firmly linked to Portugal, as do people in Mozambique, Angola and Guinea-Bissau.

Correction: Kenya was not highlighted on an earlier version of the British imperial map; this has since been rectified