observe.earth is a browser-based live world map that plots earthquakes, armed conflict, natural disasters, disease outbreaks, cyber incidents and internet outages from public feeds onto a single globe with country-level context.
What is observe.earth?
observe.earth is a global event monitor that aggregates public feeds — USGS, GDACS, WHO, ECDC and the World Bank — into one interactive world map. It takes live hazard and incident reports as input and outputs a mapped, severity-coded event layer; picking a marker shows what happened, where, and who reported it. Map tiles are served by OpenFreeMap and OpenMapTiles, with geographic data from OpenStreetMap.
Key Features
- Nine grouped event layers — events are bucketed into cyber attacks (196 at capture), explosions (142), violence (132), protests (78), strategic developments (76), wildfires (73), battles (72), disease (49) and satellite fire detections (300), with an "other types" catch-all of 223 and 1,041 browsable events in total.
- Severity encoding — colour and size on the map show High, Elevated or Low severity, and a grouped event takes the colour of its most severe member.
- Traceable sources — every record keeps the feed it came from, with USGS, GDACS, WHO, ECDC and the World Bank named on the page.
- Rolling counts per family — the home page surfaces live tallies such as 147 earthquakes in the last 7 days, 372 conflict events in the last 7 days, 90 active natural disasters, 30 disease outbreaks, 128 cyber incidents and 8 internet outages.
- Flight and vessel counts — the map shows 11,326 flights and 1,569 vessels alongside hazard events.
- Followed topics and watched locations — signed-in users receive realtime pushes for the topics and places they watch, plus a morning email digest called the morning clipping.
- Today's briefing — a dated summary page at observe.earth/today groups current events by family, with separate sections for health and infrastructure.
Who should use observe.earth?
- Newsroom and OSINT analysts: check the live map and 7-day counts before writing about a quake, outbreak or conflict flashpoint.
- Humanitarian logistics staff: watch the natural-disaster and disease-outbreak layers for country-level context when planning a response.
- Security and travel-risk teams: follow the cyber incident and internet outage layers to see where connectivity is degraded.
- Supply-chain watchers: compare event clusters against the fuel-price layer the page advertises for disruption tracking.
What can you do with observe.earth?
- Breaking-news verification: open an event on the map, read what happened, and cite the originating feed rather than the aggregator.
- Regional watch: set watched locations and receive realtime pushes plus a morning email instead of refreshing the map.
- Cross-domain correlation: compare 372 conflict events in the last 7 days against 8 internet outages to see whether connectivity loss clusters near fighting.
- Daily briefing: open the dated briefing page for a grouped snapshot of earthquakes, health and infrastructure items.
How does observe.earth work?
Public feeds push records to the aggregator, which sorts each one into an event family, scores it High, Elevated or Low, and plots it on the map with a link back to the source. Selecting a marker opens the detail view: what happened, where, and who reported it. Signing in adds followed topics and watched locations, delivered by realtime push and a morning email.
FAQ
What data sources does observe.earth use?
Event feeds are USGS, GDACS, WHO, ECDC and the World Bank; geography comes from OpenStreetMap, rendered with OpenFreeMap and OpenMapTiles. Each event record retains its original source, so a marker can be traced back to the reporting organisation.
Does observe.earth cover fuel prices?
Yes — the page's headline lists fuel prices alongside earthquakes, conflicts, disasters and outbreaks, and the map also carries flight and vessel counts (11,326 and 1,569 at capture). Fuel prices sit as an additional layer rather than as one of the nine event families.
Is observe.earth free to use?
The map, live counts and event browsing are readable without an account. Following topics and watched locations, realtime pushes and the morning email are tied to a signed-in dashboard at observe.earth/dashboard. No price is listed on the page.
What is the morning clipping?
It is the digest feature: realtime pushes for the topics and locations a user follows, plus one morning email pulling together everything that matters. It is offered through the signed-in dashboard rather than on the public map.
