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Updated: Jun 15, 2026
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Trajectory Data Analyses for Pedestrian Space-time Activity Study
Published on: February 25, 2013
Shifting landscape of terrorism: A 50-year spatiotemporal analysis
Shupeng Lyu1, Chen Qian1, Ching-Hung Lee1
1School of Public Policy and Administration, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an, China.
Summary
Global terrorism risk evolved through four stages from 1970-2020, with most countries experiencing increasing terrorism trends. Spatially, terrorism clusters and shifts, forming distinct global hotspots.
Area of Science:
- Geographic analysis
- Criminology
- Global security studies
Background:
- Understanding the spatiotemporal dynamics of global terrorism is crucial for effective counter-terrorism strategies.
- Existing research often lacks integrated geographic perspectives to analyze terrorism patterns.
- The Global Terrorism Database (GTD) provides extensive data for longitudinal analysis.
Purpose of the Study:
- To analyze the spatiotemporal evolutionary characteristics of global terrorism from 1970 to 2020.
- To identify distinct temporal stages and spatial patterns of terrorism.
- To enhance the understanding of terrorism dynamics by integrating geographic methods.
Main Methods:
- Mann-Kendall trend test for temporal analysis.
- Spatial autocorrelation, kernel density estimation, and standard deviational ellipse for spatial analysis.
- Analysis of 171,327 terrorist incidents from 176 countries in the Global Terrorism Database (GTD).
Main Results:
- Global terrorism risk exhibited four distinct temporal stages: emerging (1970-1991), descending (1992-2000), rampant (2001-2014), and attenuating (2015-2020).
- A majority of countries (117) showed an increasing trend in terrorism risk, while 56 showed a decreasing trend.
- Terrorism distribution is spatially clustered, with a shifting center of gravity and dominant direction, forming "two major core circles and multiple sub-centers" as hotspots.
Conclusions:
- Global terrorism has undergone significant spatiotemporal evolution over five decades.
- The spatial distribution of terrorism is characterized by aggregation and dynamic shifts in hotspots.
- Findings provide critical insights for targeted interventions and global security policy.
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