The world from space, then and now

Forty years of satellite imagery, place by place: cities that rose out of deserts and seas, lakes that vanished, forests that gave way to roads. Drag to compare, then open any place in the satellite tool to step through every year.

• DubaiUAEFrom desert coast to a city of islands: the Palm, the World and the Marina rose out of the Gulf.
• Abu DhabiUAESaadiyat, Yas and Reem islands filled in, and the city spread across the mangroves.
• DohaQatarThe Pearl and Lusail were built on reclaimed land as the skyline climbed.
• RiyadhSaudi ArabiaA desert capital that grew many times over.
• ShanghaiChinaPudong was farmland in 1984.
• ShenzhenChinaA fishing town became a city of 17 million.
• Las VegasUSASuburbs spread across the valley while Lake Mead fell.
• Lake MeadUSAThe bathtub ring: the reservoir at its lowest since it was filled.
• Aral SeaKazakhstan / UzbekistanOne of the largest lakes on Earth, mostly gone.
• Rondônia rainforestBrazilThe fishbone pattern of roads and clearings eating into the Amazon.
• SingaporeSingaporeA quarter of the island is reclaimed land; the port moved west.
• Hong KongChinaA new airport on a new island, and a harbour that narrowed.
• CairoEgyptNew Cairo and the new capital rose in the desert east of the Nile.
• LagosNigeriaEko Atlantic was built into the sea as the city doubled and doubled again.
• IstanbulTürkiyeA third bridge, a new airport and a city that swallowed its forests.
• MumbaiIndiaNavi Mumbai and the new airport spread east across the creek.
• KochiIndiaBackwaters, a container port on an island, and a metro.
• BengaluruIndiaLakes shrank as the tech city spread in every direction.
• DelhiIndiaGurugram and Noida grew from fields into skylines.
• JakartaIndonesiaA sinking megacity, with a sea wall and new islands.
• Tokyo BayJapanOdaiba, Haneda's new runways and the bay shoreline filled in.
• SeoulSouth KoreaSongdo rose from tidal flats west of the city.
• BeijingChinaRing roads spread outward to the sixth.
• Mexico CityMexicoThe valley filled to its edges.
• São PauloBrazilSouth America's largest city, still spreading.
• HoustonUSASprawl along every freeway, and the bayous that flood.
• PhoenixUSADesert turned to suburbs, and farms turned to desert.
• MiamiUSABrickell's towers and the Everglades edge.
• New OrleansUSAThe wetlands that protected the city keep disappearing.
• San Francisco BayUSASalt ponds returned to marsh while Silicon Valley filled in.
• LondonUKDocklands, Stratford and a river that got a barrier.
• RotterdamNetherlandsMaasvlakte 2: a port built in the North Sea.
• Venice lagoonItalyMOSE barriers and a lagoon that floods.
• Jakobshavn glacierGreenlandThe fastest glacier in the world has retreated kilometres.
• Mount St. HelensUSAThe 1980 blast zone slowly turning green again.
• Three Gorges DamChinaA 600 km reservoir where the Yangtze gorges were.
• Dead SeaJordan / IsraelFalling a metre a year.
• Lake ChadChadA lake that lost nine tenths of its water.
• Kuala LumpurMalaysiaPutrajaya and Cyberjaya built from plantations.
• SydneyAustraliaThe west grew; the bush burned in 2019–20.

Open the satellite tool → Any place on Earth, Sentinel-2, Landsat, radar and aerial.