Frequently Asked Questions About the Crisis Map
What is a crisis map?
A crisis map is an interactive world map that plots active conflicts, humanitarian emergencies, or disaster zones with status indicators. Crisis Pulse is a free live crisis map tracking 25+ global hotspots with daily intensity scores from real news feeds.
Is this a live crisis map?
Yes. Crisis Pulse is a live crisis map that updates every 24 hours. An automated pipeline refreshes the intensity score and top news headlines for each of the 25+ tracked conflicts, and the D3.js visualization reflects the latest state whenever users open it.
Is Crisis Pulse free?
Yes. Crisis Pulse is completely free, requires no signup, no account, and no payment. There are no ads, no tracking, and no hidden fees. The live crisis map and emergency supply calculator are both open to everyone.
How does intensity scoring work on the crisis map?
Each conflict on the crisis map receives a daily intensity score calculated by analyzing news article volume from Bing News RSS feeds. The algorithm compares today's article count against a rolling baseline to compute deltas (rising or falling), so users can spot escalations early. Scores update automatically every 24 hours.
Is Crisis Pulse a prediction engine?
No. Crisis Pulse is a descriptive signal aggregator, not a prediction tool. The crisis map shows where news volume is unusually high or rising relative to each conflict's own baseline. Rising intensity does not guarantee escalation.
Which conflicts are on the crisis map?
The crisis map tracks 25+ active conflicts: Russia-Ukraine War, Israel-Hamas conflict in Gaza, Sudan civil war, Myanmar civil war, Taiwan Strait tensions, Yemen conflict, Haiti gang crisis, Ethiopia, DRC, Sahel region insurgencies (Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger), Syria, Iran-Israel, Lebanon-Israel, Armenia-Azerbaijan, Kashmir, South China Sea, Korean Peninsula, Colombian armed conflict, Mexican cartel violence, Somalia, Nigeria, Mozambique, Central African Republic, Western Sahara, and Libya.
How does the emergency supply calculator work?
After exploring the crisis map, users can open the calculator and answer a short set of questions about country, housing type (apartment, house, rural), household size, and special needs (medical, pets, infants). It generates a tailored checklist covering water, food, medical supplies, power backup, documents, and communications gear — calibrated to your actual situation rather than a generic 72-hour kit.
Does the crisis map support Chinese?
Yes. Crisis Pulse fully supports English and Simplified Chinese. Conflict names, types, descriptions, and daily news headlines are all bilingual. Language switching is instant.
Is my data private when I use the crisis map?
Yes. Crisis Pulse does not use cookies or third-party tracking. The only data collected is anonymous visitor counts by country for a simple statistics panel. GPS location, if granted, is used only to position your marker on the crisis map and is never transmitted or stored.
How does this crisis map compare to Ushahidi or Liveuamap?
Ushahidi is a crowdsourced crisis mapping platform for field reporting. Liveuamap is a paid conflict map focused on geolocated events. Crisis Pulse is a free, single-HTML-file interactive crisis map focused on daily intensity signal across 25+ conflicts, plus a household preparedness calculator. Different goals, different trade-offs, zero cost.
Who built Crisis Pulse?
Crisis Pulse is built by an independent developer as an open project. The entire crisis map application ships as a single HTML file with Netlify Functions for daily news updates and Netlify Blobs for serverless persistence. No external database, no build pipeline, no framework.