Terrorism is a term that became an inherent part in everyone’s vocabulary, especially after Al-Qaeda’s attack on the World Trade Center’s Twin Towers (1 WTC and 2 WTC) in New York City (US) on 11 September 2001, commonly referred to as 9/11. This attack resulted in a war (Iraq’s invasion in 2003) and further destabilised an entire region. We all, but especially the people living there, still have to deal with its aftermath, e.g. ISIS.
However, terrorism has always been around as a tool to daunt and frighten people. My aim was to get an overview where and when in the world there were terror attacks – and in which context. This is why I had a look at the Global terrorism database: “The Global Terrorism Database (GTD) is an open-source database including information on terrorist events around the world from 1970 through 2016 (with annual updates planned for the future). Unlike many other event databases, the GTD includes systematic data on domestic as well as international terrorist incidents that have occurred during this time period and now includes more than 170,000 cases.” So, this is the place to go!
I downloaded their data and made a Tableau Public dashboard that gave me an instant overview about when did how many attacks occur in which parts of the world. The severity is indicated by the number of people being killed in an attack. However, each event includes a lot more information (if available), such as the number of people injured, the target, or the motivation behind the attack. You can find the dashboard here.