This is a special guest post by Tiago Veloso from Visual Loop – a non-stop stream of Infographics, Maps, Charts and many other Visualization Goodies, with lots of new posts everyday. User submissions are always welcome, opened to artists and designers from all over the world. Be sure to check out Tiago’s first massive hit on Inspired Mag – Info-Visualization Through the Eyes and Talent of 10 Brazilian Designers

The year has just began, but we can surely say that the political situation in Egypt and other North African and Middle Eastern nations will be one of the major events of 2011.

Despite some other big events (like the Super Bowl), a lot of attention was given to the situation in these countries, and today we bring you some of the most interesting visual resources to understand the political changes taking place in Egypt, and its impact on all the Arab nations.

History

Before entering the current events, a quick overlook at the history of one of the most important regions in History, and impressive nations in the world – especially because it seems like not even Fox News really knows where Egypt is! Egypt’s past continues to dazzle for its greatness and mystery, but looking back in time, it’s not so hard to understand how things come to the present point.

Exploring Africa trough time [Interactive] | Via

The timeline of Egyptian history | Via

The Nile valley (1588) | Via

The structure of ancient Egyptian society| Via

The Egyptian Empire 1550-1070 a.c. (Spain) | Via

Of course, we had to mention the country’s most iconic monuments:

Giza Pyramids: perfect alignment | Via

Egypt’s Touristic attractions: places of interest along Nile | Via

What’s all about

So, what are the reasons for the riots and violence on the streets? The following resources help to clarify all the doubts you might have:

Longevity in Power | Via

Egypt | Via

Timeline: Mubarak’s Presidency | Via

Everything You Wanted to Know About Egypt in One Place | Via

Egypt: Young and Jobless [Interactive] | Via

Egyptian Opposition Groups | Via

The Egyptian Legislative Elections 2010 | Via

The Psychology of the Crisis in Egypt | Via

Protests in Egypt | Via

Why Are People In Egypt Protesting? | Via

What Are The Protests In Egypt Accomplishing? | Via

Egypt, a new Revolution | Via

Why Are People In Egypt Still Protesting? | Via

Mubarak calls for change in Egypt | Via

The Conflicts

Violence it’s always dreadful, despite the context. But, unfortunately, it’s also the only way to get attention and make some necessary changes. History teaches us that, and the recent events in Egypt seem to corroborate this lesson:

Locating the Protests in Cairo | Via

Egyptian protests turn bloody | Via

Diagram of the Battle for Tahrir Square | Via

A closer look at the protests in Egypt | Via

Egypt: The camp that toppled a president | Via

The protests in Egypt| Via

Egyptian Activists’ Action Plan: Translated | Via

The Egyptian Revolution | Via

The Youngsters that have taken the Streets of Egypt | Via

Mubarak’s speech – Feb 10 | Via

And there’s even a sort of humorous explanation:

Explaining The Egyptian Revolution Through ‘Raiders of the Lost Ark’ | Via

Role of the Internet

Apart of the social and political situation, the most impressive differential, when comparing to other revolutions, has been the role of the internet, and especially the Social Networks – so big that an extreme shutdown measure was applied. Let’s take a look at some infographics about that.

Internet Censorship: Enemies of the Internet | Via

The Internet in Africa | Via

The Middle East Internet Statistics 2010 | Via

Africa Without Egypt | Via

Egypt Unrest and the Social Web | Via

The Guardian’s Twitter network of Arab protests | Via

How Egyptians Used Twitter During the January Crisis | Via

Visualizing The New Arab Mind | Via

Egyptian Unrest Social Media Map | Via

Internet Activity in Egypt | Via

How Egypt shut down the Internet | Via

Mobile web usage highest in Asia and Africa | Via

Spreading the Revolution

Other nations from the Middle East and north Africa are following the steps of Tunisia and Egypt. Change is on the way as we speak, and the word is spreading fast, due to the amazing power of the internet.

Language family map of Africa | Via

The Domino Effect: Unrest in the Middle East | Via

X-Ray of the countries of North Africa and Middle East | Via

Unrest in Arab countries | Via

All you need to know about Arab World Protests | Via

The Arab World Riots | Via

The Arab world protests | Via

Revolucionary Measures | Via

Understanding the Arab World Crisis | Via

Unrest in North Africa and the Middle East | Via

Dictators in Danger | Via

And we cannot forget that it all started in Tunisia…

The Tunisian Revolution [Interactive], by Nouvel Obs (France) | Via

The Ben Ali Clan [Interactive], by Le Monde (France) | Via

Ben Ali to remain in power for life? | Via

It would be literally impossible to compile every infographic and visual resource on this subject. We hope to see a lot more in the next weeks, and feel free to comment and share any other you find interesting.

And, governments of the world, beware: the internet has fulfilled its role of major social and political transformation agent.

• Bio
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Tiago Veloso

Tiago Veloso is the founder of Visual Loop, a collaborative digital environment for everything related to information design and data visualization. He lives in Brazil, and you can connect with him online on Twitter and LinkedIn.

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