Titanic 'story map' delves into passengers' fates
On the centennial of the Titanic shipwreck, an interactive map lets people learn more about the passengers and their ultimate fates.
The explosion of digital tools is opening new ways to explore the famous 100-year old Titanic shipwreck.
Mapping software company ESRI today released an interactive map showing the country of origin and ultimate fate of all the passengers on the Titanic. For first-time Titanic followers, the map displays the actual route of the seemingly invincible ship and the location in the North Atlantic where it struck an iceberg and sunk.
The mapping shows that many of the 2,200 passengers came from London and New York, but there were many from Scandinavia, eastern Europe, and Lebanon.
It also clearly shows that those passengers in first class had a higher survival rate than those in second class, where there were more dead than survivors. About three quarters of the people in third class, which was mostly occupied by immigrants, died when the Titanic struck the iceberg on April 14, 1912.
For serious Titanic buffs, the story map allows people to find out a bit of each passenger. Clicking on Switzerland, we can get a snapshot of the story behind third-class passenger Albert Wirz who emigrated Switzerland, boarded in the U.K., and intended to settle in Wisconsin.
For survivors, such as 25-year old Sidney Collett from London, the visualization details which lifeboat carried them to safety.
ESRI has made a number of story maps on everything from healthcare to carbon dioxide emissions using a combination of data, maps, and simple navigation to let people learn about a specific topic.
