About Global Armed Conflicts Map
Global Armed Conflicts Map is a secondary aggregation of existing conflict data, not a primary source and not a news organisation. It exists to make three respected but differently structured datasets comparable at a glance.
Open the live conflict map →What this site is
Global Armed Conflicts Map organises 29 active armed conflict theaters into a consistent profile — status, intensity, key actors, geography and sourced developments — built by aggregating the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED), the Uppsala Conflict Data Program (UCDP) and the Council on Foreign Relations' Global Conflict Tracker. Where a theater has a published map, it also plots sourced points of control drawn from the same underlying reporting.
Each dataset was built for a different purpose — ACLED for event-level tracking, UCDP for academic conflict classification, CFR for strategic briefing — and each uses its own definitions and update cadence. This site's role is narrow: hold them side by side in one comparable format, attribute every figure to the organisation that produced it, and show plainly how current each attribution is.
Who it is for
- Researchers and students who need a comparable overview across many conflicts before going to primary datasets
- Journalists and analysts doing quick situational orientation on a theater they don't cover daily
- Anyone tracking a specific conflict who wants a single page linking out to the organisations that actually collect the data
What this site does not do
It is not a primary source. It does not conduct original field reporting, does not run its own casualty count, and does not produce predictions or forecasts about how a conflict will develop. Every territorial-control and casualty figure on this site is attributed to the organisation that published it, carries that organisation's own as-of date, and should be verified against the original source before being relied on for anything consequential. Status and intensity labels shown on this site (e.g. Active, Frozen, High) are this site's own editorial summary of the underlying sources, not a field reported by ACLED, UCDP or CFR themselves.
Coverage is limited to the 29 theaters currently tracked; a conflict's absence from this site is not a judgement about its scale or importance, only a reflection of current coverage.
See it in practice
- Coverage, and its edges. The Russia–Ukraine war page and the Syria civil war page show what a fully profiled theater looks like: sourced control entries, a source-freshness strip and a revision history. See the methodology page for which of the 29 tracked conflicts currently have a published map and which do not.
- Where this page fits. The mechanics behind that sourcing are documented on Editorial Standards; how an error in it gets fixed is on the Corrections Policy page.
Frequently asked questions
Is Global Armed Conflicts Map a primary news source?
No. It is a secondary aggregation of ACLED, UCDP and the CFR Global Conflict Tracker. It does not conduct original field reporting or run its own casualty count.
Which conflicts does it cover?
29 active armed conflict theaters. A conflict's absence from the site reflects current coverage only, not a judgement about its scale or importance.
Who is it built for?
Researchers and students needing a comparable overview, journalists and analysts doing quick orientation, and anyone tracking a specific conflict who wants sourced links to the organisations collecting the underlying data.