These four “maps” reveal network patterns of world trade in goods in 2001 at four different thresholds. The colored boxes represent countries, clustered in selected regional trade alliance groupings. The green lines show trade relationships between countries for an aggregate of all traded commodities and products. Lines in the multi-color central circles show inter-regional trade; lines in the single-color peripheral circles show intra-regional trade. The thickness of the line indicates the relative dollar value of the trade relationship, with thicker lines representing larger dollar values. Reading from left to right, the first image shows all trade links, the second shows the largest links that cumulatively account for 75% of the total value of world trade, the third shows the largest links accounting for 50%, and the last shows 25%. Together, these four maps illustrate many aspects of the network patterns of world trade. Perhaps the most striking feature is the extreme concentration of value among a small number of countries. Underlying data are from the World Trade Analyzer. Software used to produce images is NetMap Visualizer.

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