January 7, 2026
When ships learn to fly
Shipmap.org
A world ship map sparks awe, glitches, and browser beef
TLDR: Shipmap.org shows global ship routes from 2012 and now sells gorgeous high‑res prints. Viewers love the art but roast glitches (ships crossing land), argue the speeds look unreal, and battle WebGL errors, debating whether it’s a timeless data‑viz gem or outdated eye candy worth a modern update.
Shipmap.org is the hypnotic globe of 2012 merchant ship routes that’s giving the internet big “interactive documentary” vibes. Built by Kiln with data from UCL EI, exactEarth, and Clarksons, it layers routes, ship types, and a live-ish CO2 counter into mesmerizing ocean spaghetti. Fans are swooning, calling it “like an interactive documentary,” and eyeing Kiln’s new high‑res prints for their walls. Bloggers are thrilled it's embeddable—with a link back to Kiln, of course.
But the comments are where the waves crash. One viewer watched a dot sail through the Great Lakes to Chicago, then take off like a plane to the Gulf—cue memes about the “Airship Express.” Skeptics are side‑eyeing the speed, asking if the ships are sprinting in hour jumps or if we’ve unlocked sonic cargo mode. Tech drama hit hard: people on the latest Chrome still got “use a modern browser” and a WebGL (browser graphics tech) tantrum, sparking a blame game over settings, drivers, and cursed GPUs. And yes, it’s only 2012 data—half the thread calls it a time‑capsule masterpiece; the other half wants a 2024 refresh. Even the ships crossing land got explained away as canals or missing position data, but that didn’t stop the jokes. Sea you in the comments.
Key Points
- •Shipmap.org visualizes global merchant fleet movements for 2012 with animated ships and plotted routes.
- •The map displays hourly CO2 emissions and freight counters, with filters and color-coding by five vessel categories.
- •Data come from exactEarth (AIS positions/speeds) and Clarksons Research (vessel characteristics).
- •UCL Energy Institute computed hourly CO2 emissions following the Third IMO Greenhouse Gas Study 2014; Kiln built the WebGL visualization.
- •High-resolution print versions are available, embedding is allowed with attribution, and early 2012 data are incomplete.