The Earth at Night

NASA’s night lights, which are the closest thing there is to a photograph of where people are and what they have. A village that gets a connection appears. A town that grows spreads. Explore anywhere.

Black Marble

Watch it change

Where

From To

One frame every Speed 0.4 s a frame Burn in borders and place names

Or just look at tonight

What to show Show place names over the top

Somewhere to start

Which places got brighter

Average the light inside every district or taluka boundary, for two different years, and see where it grew. This is a change, not a level — and the difference matters. The nightly imagery begins in November 2016, so that is as far back as this goes.

State District, taluka by taluka

From To

Read this before quoting any of it

This measures light, not money. The two are related and the relationship is loose. A steel works with nobody living in it blazes; a crowded settlement on a weak supply barely registers; a hill taluka is dark because it is a hill. Light per square kilometre is not light per person, and neither is income.

A change is more honest than a level, which is why this shows one. Comparing a place against itself holds the terrain, the density and the land use constant, so what is left is closer to a real change in how much light is produced. Comparing one taluka against another holds none of that constant and mostly measures how the land is used.

What it is good for: finding where electrification has and has not reached, and asking why. What it is not good for: ranking places by wealth, deciding where funds should go, or any sentence with the word “poorest” in it. Those need household data, and household data exists — the Census and the SECC are the right sources and this is not a substitute for them.

Why this matters here

Older Indian survey and revenue records sit on the Everest spheroid, not WGS 84. Treating one as the other puts everything a few hundred metres out — enough to move a plot boundary onto a neighbour.

Indian systems included

Kalianpur 1880, 1937 and 1975, the India zone grids, UTM zones 42N to 47N on both WGS 84 and Indian datums, and the WGS 84 state systems.

Bulk paste

Paste a column straight out of a spreadsheet. Anything after the first two values is carried through as a label, and the result downloads as CSV.

Nothing leaves your device

The arithmetic runs in your browser with proj4. No coordinate is transmitted, logged or stored anywhere.

Frequently asked questions

Which coordinate systems are supported?

WGS 84 and Web Mercator, UTM zones 42N to 47N on both WGS 84 and Indian datums, the Kalianpur India zone grids, and the WGS 84 state systems including Maharashtra. Each is listed with its EPSG code so you can check it against your source.

How accurate is the datum shift?

Transformations use the standard seven-parameter shifts published for each datum. Between Everest-based Indian datums and WGS 84 the difference is a few hundred metres, so using the wrong one is immediately obvious on the map preview.

Can I convert a whole list at once?

Yes. Switch to the bulk tab and paste a column. Comma, tab, semicolon or space separated all work, and anything after the first two values is kept as a label. Download the result as CSV.

Which value goes in which box?

Easting or longitude on the left, northing or latitude on the right. The labels change with the system you pick, so you never have to remember. Bulk mode has a swap option.

Is anything uploaded?

No. Everything runs in your browser using proj4, so no coordinate ever leaves your device.

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