How to use this map

What you are looking at

This is a conflict monitor. Its unit is a theater — a conflict, with the states and armed groups inside it — and not a country. The lit zones are theaters: one can cover several states, stop short of all of them, and a country caught in two theaters glows for both. The glow is never a statement about a government.

From far away the map orients you. Up close it tells you what happened.

Getting into a conflict

Three ways in, and they all reach the same place.

• The conflict list. Every accessible theater, including quiet ones, in one place and in the order the map ranks them. On a computer or a tablet it is the Active conflicts menu in the top row; on a phone it is in the top context bar: tap the current scope to choose a conflict. Followed conflicts come first.
• The cards on the map. Where there is room, a theater carries a card with its tension level and its trend. On a phone the same reading is a single line.
• The lit area itself. Click or tap the glow. A theater that has been quiet may have no card of its own; its glow still answers, and the chip it reveals offers Show on map.

Selecting a theater on the map frames it in the camera; changing scope in Activity only changes the list. Everything below becomes available at that point.

On a phone

The bottom bar offers Map, Activity, Report and Probability. The top bar holds the conflict selector, the activity period and Profile. Choosing a conflict on Map frames it and leaves the map clear. Map view, beside the zoom controls, contains Standard/All detail and the map key.

Activity offers All | Following worldwide and List | Timeline within a conflict. Each conflict remembers your choice. Use Follow in the conflict list, Activity or Report; it saves without taking you elsewhere. Following’s Edit control changes the same choices: on this device without a session, in your account when signed in.

Report remembers the edition for each conflict: Overview · The week · Daily. Changing conflict keeps Report or Probability open; choosing World returns to Map. From World or Following, either reading asks you to choose a conflict. The activity period does not select a report edition.

The bars stay in Activity, Report and Probability. Scrolling down shrinks the bottom bar to the active tab; scroll up or tap the pill to expand it. Tapping the active tab returns to the top. Events, the map key, this guide and Profile open without those bars. Back restores your context, position and focus; Show on map locates an event. Profile holds language, theme, clock and a link to this guide. Save profile changes to apply them.

The theater panel

On a computer or tablet, one instrument appears, holding the theater’s name, its tension level and its trend, the period in force, the clock, and three controls.

• Theater events — events whose time overlaps the period you have chosen, plus conditions that still hold.
• Intelligence Report— the desk’s written snapshot of the conflict.
• Theater probability — an estimate for a stated question, priced by a prediction market, where one is running. There may be several scenarios. A value disappears when its market closes, its published deadline expires or the desk deactivates it. Loading and network errors are distinguished from no available scenario.

A control with nothing to offer says so and stays where it is: No probability for this theater is the data speaking. When two readings do not fit side by side, the window shows one, and a selector with both names lets you switch without losing your place. If not even one fits, you can open a full reading and return to your workspace.

Reading the marks

Zoom in and the events themselves appear. Each flat pictogram names the kind of event — there is no generic pin — while its size carries importance. Point to it, focus it or select it to reveal the geographic detail: a true-scale location radius or, for an attack, its reported or derived direction.

All of that is written down in the map key, behind the key control on the map. That document is the legend, and it is the only place those readings are defined.

Opening an event

Click or tap a mark, or a row in the theater events list. The event opens with its summary, its sources, its verification status and whatever media the desk published with it.

Every event has an address of its own, and Share copies it. A mark that stands for several events — a stack, or the marks of a whole country, region or passage — takes two gestures rather than one: the first pins a card that lists them all, and choosing one opens it.

Moving through time

• The period — 24 hours, 7 days or 30 days. It sets which events are drawn and listed. Report edition is a separate choice: open the overview, then choose a published weekly or daily report. Changing edition preserves your activity period. A missing edition is explained; another report never silently replaces it.
• Standing conditions ignore the period. A closure that began in March is still true today, so it stays in the list whichever window you pick.
• The timeline along the bottom edge on a computer, or inside Activity on a phone. Drag across it, or use the arrow keys, to browse by time. On a computer it rests as marks along an axis; Expand adds its curve. The curve measures publishing activity — how much was written about this theater, weighted by importance. It is not a tension reading: a peak means a busy desk, not a worse day.

Settings that change what you see

• Map detail — Standard or All. Standard filters the map’s marks; All includes every eligible detail level. This setting does not hide events in Activity, report content or sources. If both choices include the same current events, the control explains it.
• Event clock — every time either in your own time zone or in UTC.
• Theme — dark or light.
• Language — English or Spanish, from the top right of the world view. It steps aside once a theater is selected. On a phone, change it in Profile.
• An account is optional, and it opens nothing. A reader who never signs in sees the same map, with the same events and the same detail levels.

What this map claims, and what it does not

Events are published one at a time by the editorial desk, each carrying the sources it was published on. Verification status travels with an event everywhere it appears: a disputed claim stays disputed here.

Where the events come from, and the legend for every mark, is in the map key. It reads that statement off the catalogue rather than declaring it, so what it says is true of the map you are looking at.