Strava unveils stunning new global heatmap, showing more than one billion activities

Amazing data covers more than five per cent of the land on earth

Strava has released the latest version of its global heatmap, showing where people have cycled, ran, swam, skied, surfed, and whatever else-d in activities uploaded to the site.

The full heatmap can be found here, and lets you see where people have been working out in a beautiful visualisation that covers the globe and comes with some fairly astonishing stats.

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The map is the result of more than one billion activities uploaded by more than 10 million athletes, with a combined distance of more than 27 billion kilometres and a duration of 200,000 years.

Strava's athletes have apparently covered five per cent of the land on earth while completing these activities, which even includes the summit of Mount Everest (although that wasn't on a bike, sorry).

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This is all well and good, and very nice to look at, but Strava says that the heatmap has a more serious purpose when linked with Strava Metro, which uses data from activities to inform planning of pedestrian and cycling infrastructure in more than 70 cities around the world.

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"The Strava Heatmap is enlightening because it lets us connect the bike riders we spot on the streets with a broader

perspective of our territory, over space and time," said Jorge G. Coelho, mobility project manager at the Association of Algarve Municipalities.

"Strava Metro then gives us the possibility to dive much deeper, breaking down data minute-by-minute and segment-by-segment for the entire road network."

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Henry Robertshaw began his time at Cycling Weekly working with the tech team, writing reviews, buying guides and appearing in videos advising on how to dress for the seasons. He later moved over to the news team, where his work focused on the professional peloton as well as legislation and provision for cycling. He's since moved his career in a new direction, with a role at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.