By Joshua Chang

Consider your surroundings. Where are you right now? What do you notice? If you are reading this, chances are you are indoors, in a room, surrounded by walls, a floor, and a ceiling. And, that sort of environment is probably where you spend most of your day. Whether we are sleeping, eating, showering, relaxing, driving, or working, the vast majority of our life is spent experiencing things that were created by people. In our everyday existence, the scale of the man-made environment feels endless, and endlessly important.

Our maps confirm this intuition. They are littered with human inventions: words and lines defining cities, states, countries, continents, and other features of political geography. But, as we all know (but often forget), none of these concepts exist on the physical Earth.

Take this image from a NASA satellite: even at this scale, which accounts for less than a twentieth of our planet’s surface, it is nearly impossible to discern any artifact of human existence.

That isn’t to say that political geography isn’t important — it obviously is. But, it is easy to overlook, amidst the business of everyday life, that we live on a huge, powerful, dynamic planet that, like it or not, shapes how we live.

This project seeks to explore the connection between the physical and cultural landscapes of Central Asia. It aims to give a small glimpse into how the earth influences the expression of music, religion, food, and lifestyle of the region.

The map for this project is probably different from the maps you are used to. It is designed with the goal of demonstrating the Earth as a physical object rather than a political concept. It strips away all the labels and borders, and instead is based on scientific data collected about the world itself. To render the map, I first used elevation data from NASA to create a three-dimensional model of Central Asia in an open-source three-dimensional animation program called Blender (similar to the programs used by Pixar, for example). In Blender, I added two light sources, one from directly overhead to illuminate the entire landscape and one that is placed to the top right of the landscape, creating shadows and highlights that make it look three-dimensional. I then overlaid a color layer called a “hypometric tint,” which is just a fancy word for a mixture of temperature and precipitation. Places with more precipitation are more green and places with less are more tan. Places with a higher elevation are lighter in color, like the white mountain peaks. The hypsometric tint is based on data from another open-source project called Natural Earth. Finally, I placed a layer to show major lakes, rivers, and seas, also derived from Natural Earth. The overall idea was to create a map that feels “real,” that almost feels like you could touch it. The map is very high resolution (16,196  ×  7,355 pixels), so I urge you to zoom in and explore the details.

Each of the icons on the map represents one example of a cultural artifact, and if you click on one, it will open an explanation of the artifact and its connection to the Earth. The artifacts — a dish, a pilgrimage site, and a dwelling — come from diverse parts of Central Asian culture, although by no means do they represent the entirety, or even a sliver, of what the region has to offer. Another thing to note: the location where the icon is placed on the map roughly corresponds to a place where that artifact can be found, but that doesn’t mean that region is the only place where the artifact holds significance.

Perhaps the best way to think of this project is as an interactive essay: this summary is like the introduction and conclusion, the artifacts each represent a body paragraph, and the website and map act as transitions. I hope that, as you explore, you gain a new perspective on the geography of Central Asia and its important connection to culture.

P.S. If you are interested in seeing more amazing imagery of Central Asia (or anywhere) from space, check out the NASA Visible Earth Project.

1. Satellite Photo of Central Asia. NASA Visible Earth Project. National Aeronautics and Space Administration, 2004. https://visibleearth.nasa.gov/.
2. Sand and Snow in Central Asia. NASA Visible Earth Project. National Aeronautics and Space Administration, December 5, 2018.

Bibliography

Note: this bibliography is only for the summary and the map. Each artifact has its own bibliography.

"1:10m Raster Data." Natural Earth. Accessed November 26, 2022. https://www.naturalearthdata.com/.

“AρρEEARS.” NASA Earth Observing System Data and Information System. NASA. Accessed November 26, 2022. https://appeears.earthdatacloud.nasa.gov/explore.

Collett, Richard. The Sacred Sulaiman-Too Mountain in Osh, Kyrgyzstan. December 1, 2018. Travel Tramp. https://www.travel-tramp.com/sulaiman-too-osh-kyrgyzstan/.

Image of a Kyrgyz yurt. Avantour. Accessed December 21, 2022. https://www.advantour.com/kyrgyzstan/culture/yurts.htm.

Mike Benayoun, Mike. Image of Plov. Plov. 196 Flavors, May 28, 2018. https://www.196flavors.com/uzbekistan-plov/.

Sand and Snow in Central Asia. NASA Visible Earth Project. National Aeronautics and Space Administration, December 5, 2018. https://visibleearth.nasa.gov/.

Satellite Photo of Central Asia. NASA Visible Earth Project. National Aeronautics and Space Administration, 2004. https://visibleearth.nasa.gov/.