This cool heat map tracks billions of people travelling for Chinese New Year

Close to three billion trips are expected to be taken this year, making it the world’s largest human movement

Baidu

Andrew Barclay

Published: 8:00am, 19 Feb, 2018

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This article originally appeared on ABACUS

Chinese New Year is quite unlike anything in the West.

The mass exodus -- considered the world’s largest seasonal migration -- sees hundreds of millions of Chinese people travel home to visit their families. It’s almost impossible to picture the sheer scale of it.

But thanks to Baidu, you can visualise the three billion passenger trips that will be made over the holidays.

Think of it as a heat map for millions of people moving across China: Red lines flow from the massive cities on the coast to homes further inland.

The most active route as of Thursday afternoon was from Shanghai to the city of Luan in Anhui province, where many of China’s migrant workers come from.

The most common city to depart from? Predictably, it’s Shenzhen: The bustling city north of Hong Kong where enormous factories manufacture electronics for the world. The map is powered by Baidu’s vast troves of location-based data from its apps, including Baidu Maps.

In addition to the population migration, you can also track real-time flights as well as airport and train station heat maps.

A screenshot of Baidu Migration as of Thursday afternoon. (Source: Baidu Migration).

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