This map shows how local each place's Facebook friendship network is. Choose a distance, and each place is colored by the estimated share of its friendship network that falls within that distance.
Darker places have a larger nearby share. Lighter places have more geographically spread-out networks at the selected distance.
More details, including the full SCI data download, are available at the Humanitarian Data Exchange.
Interactive map powered by MapLibre. Default basemap by OpenFreeMap, OpenMapTiles, and OpenStreetMap contributors.
For every origin place, the tool estimates the share of its friendship network that is nearby. The calculation is done ahead of time for each radius shown in the slider, so the browser can recolor the whole map quickly.
For a given origin, we use its Social Connectedness Index values to every available destination. A higher SCI means Facebook users in the two places are more likely to be friends with one another.
For each destination, the tool multiplies SCI by destination population:
SCI from origin to destination x destination population
This is an estimate of connection volume, not a literal count of friendships. It uses true population because public Facebook user counts are not part of the released data.
The tool measures distance from the center point of the origin to the center point of each destination. A destination counts as nearby when it is within the selected radius.
The map value for each origin is:
nearby connection weight / total connection weight
If a place is colored as 60% at 250 miles, that means about 60% of its estimated friendship network is within 250 miles.