• Travel time to major cities (Hours)

    This map was made for the World Bank's World Development Report 2009 Reshaping Economic Geography. As economies grow from low to high income, production becomes more concentrated spatially. Some places—cities, coastal areas, and connected countries—are favored by producers. ... The way to get both the immediate benefits of concentration of production and the long-term benefits of a convergence in living standards is economic integration." (WDR 2009, Overview). For measuring the concentration of economic activity, instead of using binary distinctions of rural versus urban, the report takes advantage of global accessibility measures which can be combined with data on population density to create a much finer typology which is termed the Agglomeration Index (AI). The global map of travel time to major cities (cities of 50,000 or more people in year 2000) is a useful dataset in its own right, but it is also a component of the AI.

    layer
  • cloudSource
    EC-JRC
  • editSuggested citation
    Nelson, A. (2008) Estimated travel time to the nearest city of 50,000 or more people in year 2000. Global Environment Monitoring Unit - Joint Research Centre of the European Commission, Ispra Italy. Available at https://forobs.jrc.ec.europa.eu/products/gam/ (accessed dd/mm/yyyy)
  • extensionRelated tool or portal
    https://forobs.jrc.ec.europa.eu/
  • copyrightLicence
    No information provided
  • av_timerDate or time period of observation
  • timerFrequency of update
    Frequency of updates not provided
  • mapGeographic coverage
    Global
  • tab_unselectedSpatial Resolution
    1km
  • extensionTechnical background
  • errorCautions
    Accessibility maps are made for a specific purpose and they cannot be used as a generic dataset to represent "the" accessibility for a given study area. The data described and presented here were used to create an urban/rural population gradient around large cities of 50,000 or more people. The assumptions made in the generation of this accessibility map can be found in the description and data sources links on the left. If these assumptions sound reasonable for your requirements then the data are available for download. If, however, the assumptions do not match your requirements then you can use the information in these pages as well as the software and external links to create your own accessibility model.
  • dashboardRelated SDGs and targets
    GOAL 7: Affordable and clean energy, GOAL 11: Sustainable Cities and Communities, GOAL 13: Climate Action
  • tocRelated Topics
    Emissions, Society, Energy
  • share Embed it in your maps
        
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