Misleading: Map Shows Every Recorded Battle In History

Dina Faisal

Politics

5th May 2021

Misleading: Map Shows Every Recorded Battle In History

Map portrays a false world narrative (Screenshot).

The Claim

The map pinpoints every recorded battle in history by location.

A supporting image within the article body

News posted on

Soner Cagaptay

Traditionalism revival

President Elect John Jason Fallows

The Big Data Stats

Ercan Karaduman 🇹🇷🇦🇿🇵🇸

Emerging story

Soner Cagaptay Official tweeted a map that shows every recorded battle in history. Cagaptay alleged the white dots on the world map indicate the location of every battle recorded in history. Others shared a timelapse video with the same alleged information.

Misbar’s Analysis

The Misbar investigation revealed the primary source of the map on a Youtube channel. Cottereau is a channel that designs animated maps and data visualization. The timelapse video was uploaded in January 2019 and had almost 8 million views.

Wikipedia is the data source portrayed in the video. While Wikipedia can be a good source for personal use or as a starting point of reference, it is not credible or reliable since anyone can change it. It is also not accurate nor comprehensive. The Wikipedia foundation is blocked in all versions in China. That is why Europe and America have many more recorded battles than in Asia and Africa.

Additionally, Wikipedia is available in 321 language editions (310 currently active and 11 closed), while the creator only used data using 32 languages, which may have had other recorded battles. Although a verified user started the claim, it is still misleading, highlighting the importance of information verification. While the video idea is interesting, it is not an accurate representation of battles that have been recorded in history and paints a false world narrative.