Spatial Data on Armed Intrastate Conflict1

Halvard Buhaug
Department of Sociology and Political Science
Norwegian University of Science and Technology, NTNU
NO-7491 Trondheim
halvard.buhaug@svt.ntnu.no

March 2003

I Introduction
“Those who do not know the conditions of mountains and forests, hazardous
defiles, marshes and swamps, cannot conduct the march of an army”

So wrote Sun Tzu (1963) in his classic treatise The Art of War. Knowing your terrain is
essential if you want success on the battlefield. The environment affects your decision when
to fight, where to fight, and how to fight. And the environment certainly affects your
likelihood of success.2 To fully understand the dynamics of conflicts – why they occur and
how they evolve – we must always consider their geographical context. Yet, limited access to
geographical data has prevented researchers from systematically studying the impact of the
physical environment on the course of conflict. Rather than exploring environmental features
of the actual conflict zones, studies of conflict have been confined to employing proxy
variables on the country level, such as population density, forest cover, religious and ethnic
fractionalization, and other factors that invariably have sub-national variation. But in order to
truly assess the role of geography we need disaggregated data on the location of conflicts as
well as on the distribution of conflict-promoting variables.

1
Paper prepared for presentation at the workshop on Geography, Conflict and Cooperation; ECPR Joint
Sessions, Edinburgh, UK, 28 March – 2 April, 2003.

2
It is hard to imagine how the North Vietnamese could have withstood the overwhelming military superiority of
US forces during the Vietnam War had the topographic context been radically different.

1
 This paper outlines ongoing work to develop a dataset on the spatial distribution of
armed conflicts. Through the aid of Geographical Information Systems, GIS, each unit in the
Armed Conflict 1946-2001 database (Gleditsch et al., 2002) will be mapped in accordance
with the actual zones of conflict. The resulting conflict map can then be combined with
compatible maps of relevant exogenous factors in order to perform statistical analyses of
spatial relationships. Although geography without doubt affects both interstate and internal
conflicts, this paper will only draw on the latter type when presenting the conflict location
project. There are two reasons for this. Firstly, characteristics of a nation’s terrain are thought
to be much more relevant for intrastate conflicts. Secondly, most of today’s conflicts are
internal.

II Rationale

Why the Country-Level Approach Is Inappropriate

Geography affects strategic and operational planning, tactics, logistics operations, and
military evaluations of areas. Any credible military response to a regional conflict requires an
in-depth understanding of the geography of that region, as the geographic conditions may
enhance or constrain the exercise of military power. It is no wonder, then, that empirical
studies of armed conflict regularly include measures of geography. Indeed, most analyses of
interstate conflict find proximity (intercapital distance), direct contiguity, number of borders,
and neighboring conflicts to be strong predictors of war (Bremer 1992; Diehl, 1991;
Gleditsch, 1995; Oneal et al., 1996; Richardson, 1960; Siverson & Starr, 1990). Studies of
intrastate conflict and civil war have also explored the impact of geography, but the focus
here has been on physical and demographic attributes of the country, such as population
density and dispersion, size of country, type of terrain, and natural resource abundance (Auty,
2002; Collier & Hoeffler, 2001; Collier et al., 2001; de Soysa, 2002; Fearon & Laitin, 2001;
Ross, 2002). While the theoretical arguments behind these variables appear convincing, the
empirical findings have been rather mixed. I argue that the occasional contradiction between
insignificant statistical estimates and evidence from selected case studies by and large stem
from inadequate data and research designs. I shall elaborate this claim below.
Collier & Hoeffler (2001) argue that forests and mountains – frequently referred to as
‘rough terrain’ – is favorable to rebels by means of providing safe havens out of reach of
government forces. This proposition is expanded by Fearon & Laitin (2001), who propose

2
four hypotheses on how terrain and the relative location of rebel bases affect civil war.3 Both
papers employ Gerrard’s (2000) measure of mountainous terrain, which is a country-level
measure of proportion of country covered by mountains. Collier & Hoeffler additionally
include FAO’s (1999) comparable index of forest cover. In the Collier & Hoeffler study
neither terrain proxy produced significant effect, contrasting Fearon & Laitin’s (2001: 17)
conclusion that “mountainous terrain … are strongly related to higher numbers of civil war
onsets.” The different findings probably come as a result of the latter study using a log-
transformed version of the mountain variable, as well as a more refined research design and
increased temporal span. Whichever finding is more accurate, I argue that neither of the
studies manages to test the rough terrain argument in a proper fashion, since the hypothesis
and investigation relate to different units of analysis. If the proposition holds true, one would
expect rebels to operate from mountainous or forested regions regardless of whether 20% or
80% of the country is characterized as rough. For that reason, the rough terrain proposition
may be perfectly valid without there being a deterministic relationship between country-level
statistics of type of terrain and risk of conflict. What would be more interesting is determining
whether rebels really tend to operate from remote areas of the countries, and if so, whether the
terrain indeed favors the insurgents.4 The inaptness of using country-level measures for
variables that may have substantial sub-national variation is even more striking in studies of
duration of conflict.
Civil conflicts are per definition sub-national events and the fighting seldom involves
the entire country. As a consequence, the focus of quantitative studies should rest on the
specific conflicts, not on the conflict-ridden countries. Terrain, ethnicity, demography, and
natural resources are all frequently proposed causal factors that have substantial sub-national
variation; yet, the proxy variables have so far only been measured on the country level. But

3
The four hypotheses are: “The presence of (a) rough terrain, poorly served by roads, at a distance from the
centers of state power should favor insurgency and civil war. So should the availability of (b) foreign, cross-
border sanctuaries, and (c) a local population that can be induced not to denounce the insurgents to government
agents … (d) Having a rural base should greatly favor insurgency.” Due to lack of proper data, only the first of
these hypotheses was tested.

4
In this respect, it will certainly be fruitful to distinguish between different types of internal conflict. A quick
examination of the dataset used in Buhaug et al. (2002) shows that on average 43% of the conflict zones of
territorial intrastate conflicts were covered by mountains – the corresponding figure for conflicts over state
governance is 32%.

3
how can we assess the role of natural resources if we do not control for their location relative
to the conflict? In order to truly assess the interaction between geography (in a broad sense)
and intrastate conflict, we must consider the spatial dimension. Hence, we need data on the
location of the conflicts as well as on the geographic distribution of relevant conflict-
promoting factors. Such data will then facilitate research designs that are able to account for
the relative location of the selected variables.

III The Conflict Location Project

Initial Steps
Until most recently, data on disputes and wars were only available at the nation-state level.
An intrastate conflict in India would thus be treated as affecting the entire country, as
illustrated by Figure 1. The problem is; this simplification makes it difficult to assess the true
role of factors that vary across space. How can India’s average score of 19 % mountainous
terrain tell us anything about the conflict in Kashmir? It is essential to collect more detailed
information on the whereabouts of the conflicts. But how do we define a conflict zone? What
is the relevant area if we are to map the geographic extent of the conflicts? This may not be a
trivial task, so a clear but simple definition should be sought. Further, the quality of
information varies substantially from one conflict to the next so the operationalization also
should account for some level of uncertainty.

4
Figure 1. Civil War in India in the 1990s

Conflict data source: COW (Sarkees, 2000)

The Armed Conflict 1946-2001 dataset (Gleditsch et al., 2002) is the first systematic
attempt at dealing with the spatial dimension of conflicts. Through work conducted by this
author, each conflict is assigned a circular conflict zone, determined by a conflict center point
(latitude and longitude coordinates) and a radius variable (50 km intervals). The conflict circle
thus covers all significant battle-zones and areas controlled by the opposition force during the
entire course of the conflict. Conflicts that took place within a single spot (typically coup
d'états in the capital city) receive a default conflict radius of 50 km. Main sources for
determining the conflict zones were the archives of the Uppsala Conflict Data Project
(UCDP), Tillema (1991), and Keesing’s (2003).
According to the Armed Conflict dataset, India had several simultaneous conflicts
during the 1990s (Figure 2).5 What is more, these conflicts took place at distinctly different
regions of the country. Clearly, country-level explanatory variables are unsuitable for
explaining any differences between these conflicts. To assess the impact of terrain, population
density, natural resources, ethnicity, and so on, we need relevant variables with statistics
representing the actual conflict zones.

5
Only territorial intrastate conflicts are displayed in the map. In addition, India experienced internal strife over
governance in the same period.

5
Figure 2. Territorial Intrastate Conflicts in Kashmir, Punjab, Jarkhand, Tripura, Nagaland, and Manipur

Conflict data source: Armed Conflict (Gleditsch et al., 2002)

The circular shape of the conflict zones is a crude approximation of the real thing.
Nevertheless, the data give a better representation of the actual conflict zones than the
customary country-level approach. Moreover, the Armed Conflict data allow the researcher to
control for the location of the conflicts relative to the capital, natural resource deposits, and
other relevant factors. Buhaug & Gates (2002) used a preliminary version of this dataset to
explore determinants of the location and scope of intrastate conflicts. Their study on the
duration of armed civil conflict (Buhaug et al., 2002) is a continuation of this work. To my
knowledge, these are the first attempts at accounting for the spatial dimension of armed
conflicts in quantitative studies.
The Armed Conflict dataset is currently the lone provider of numeric information on
the sub-national location of conflicts. Yet, the circular operationalization of the conflict
location data has obvious limitations. For example, a civil war could take place mainly along
the borders of a country with rebels seeking refuge in neighboring territories. In this situation,
the geographic midpoint of the circle covering the battle-zones would be near the center of the
country, an area that in fact might be virtually unaffected by the conflict (Figure 3). What is
more, the circular representation tends to exaggerate the true size of the affected area. Hence
we still need to improve our operationalization of the conflict zones. Enter GIS.

6
Figure 3. The Center of the Conflict Circle Falls outside the Actual Zone of Conflict

Conflict zone

Center point of
conflict circle

Geographical Information Systems

Geographical Information Systems (GIS) is a label for a host of computer-based mapping
tools that allow spatial representation of features that have a geographic dimension. Although
used primarily for planning purposes, GIS is well suited for social science research. Simply
visualizing coexistence of relevant variables may spur new hypotheses or provide support for
theoretical arguments. Moreover, some GIS programs also allow statistical analyses of spatial
relationships between selected themes. In sum, GIS tools are capable of storing, manipulating,
presenting, and analyzing any feature of interest that can be represented by geographic
coordinates.
The main advantage of introducing GIS to the study of conflict is that it allows data
collection and empirical analyses to be conducted on sub-national levels, which has
previously been impossible. The preliminary data that are presented in this paper are
generated using ArcView 3.2 GIS software. The manufacturer of this software, ESRI, has also
released digital maps of a variety of variables – or layers – such as countries of the world,
administrative units, cities, rivers and lakes, major infrastructure, precipitation levels, and
biannual average temperatures (ESRI, 1996). Each variable is represented as a layer, and
several layers may be intersected to visualize geographic overlap and possible spatial
correlation. Further, the relationship between the layers may be analyzed more systematically
using analytical software such as SpaceStat or Spatial Analyst.

7
 Points and Polygons
In contrast to the conventional data structure of the Armed Conflict and comparable datasets
that severely restricts the ability to include geographic data, GIS enable the conflicts to be
represented by polygons that may take on any two-dimensional shape. Further, such a conflict
map will not be limited to a single observation (polygon) per conflict if the conflict actually
took place at several separate locations or if the shape or size of the conflict zone changed
substantially during its course. Thus GIS seems to be the appropriate direction to go.
To develop a conflict map, a necessary starting point is formulating a precise
definition of a conflict zone. What do we mean when we talk about zones of conflict – which
areas are relevant, and which should be excluded from our operationalization? In striking
contrast to the abundance of definitions of armed conflict and war, I have been unable to
locate a single useful definition of conflict zone. Even so, this may not come as a total
surprise as it is much easier to recognize the existence of a particular feature than to locate
where it begins and where it ends. In this respect, defining conflict in geographic terms is
analogous to identifying a mountain or a forest. You realize it’s there, but where are the
boundaries?
In developing a working definition of the concept, I deliberately seek simplicity over
richness. Only localities of fighting and areas under rebel control within the conflict-ridden
country are considered, excluding potentially relevant regions such as rebel sanctuaries in
neighbor states and regions affected by refugee flows. The accuracy of the information on the
conflict locations vary greatly from one case to the next, depending on the nature of the
conflict and on the reliability of the available information. For some conflicts, an
administrative region may be the most precise location, whereas other conflicts may be
pinpointed down to specific villages. Accordingly, some conflicts seem best represented by
rough, sizable polygons6 whereas other conflict zones would be more accurately coded by
point features (defined by geographical coordinates) combined with a buffer to account for
uncertainty.7 Information for coding the location data are collected from the comprehensive
UCDP conflict archives. In addition, Keesing’s (2003) as well as numerous case studies of
specific conflicts will play a central role and contribute to a more precise conflict map of the
world.

6
A polygon is a flat closed figure (plane) made up of at least 3 lines.

7
A buffer is essentially identical to the radius variable of the Armed Conflict dataset.

8
 Figure 4 below shows a preliminary map of the location of African intrastate conflicts
since 1946, using a combination of points and polygons as operationalizations of the conflict
zones. Evidently, some conflicts affected the entire country and for these cases country-level
explanatory variables would be appropriate. But most conflicts affected only some parts of the
nation-states. To get a better grip on their underlying causal mechanisms, as well as
understanding why they occur where they do and why some conflicts last so much longer than
others, it is imperative to consider the characteristics of the specific conflict zones. In this
respect, the future of the conflict location data should be bright.

Figure 4. Territorial and Governmental Intrastate Conflict Zones in Africa since 1946

Territorial conflicts Governmental conflicts

An Alternative Approach
The point and polygon data described above would imply a major step forward in terms of
being able to assess spatial relationships between geography and conflict, and the accuracy of
these location data would certainly be far superior to the circular operationalization of the
Armed Conflict dataset. But while precision is a major focus of the conflict location project,

9
so is compatibility with other data. Why develop a dataset if it cannot be combined with other
data and used for other purposes? The problem is; the point/polygon conflict maps are
generally incompatible with traditional panel data and require GIS software and specialized
skills to make use of the data. In addition, detailed information on the whereabouts of some
conflicts is virtually absent, making it hard to decide where to draw the boundaries of the
polygons. These are serious arguments against selecting the point/polygon approach.
Ideally, the location data should (with only minor modification) facilitate conventional
statistical analyses with the familiar spreadsheet data structure. To ensure the desired
consistency and compatibility, all units – that is: all conflict zones – must be on the same level
of observation. An appropriate such level would be first-order administrative units, equivalent
to Norwegian fylker or German Länder. Any administrative region that either saw fighting or
accommodated rebel bases would then be coded as belonging to the zone of conflict. While
this implies that some conflict zones will be coded less precisely than by the point/polygon
method, information on many conflicts is in fact restricted to mentioning certain regions of
the nation-state, making the polygon operationalization actually less appropriate.
Figure 5 below illustrates the distinction between the two discussed approaches. The
left map shows a rough polygon covering the battle zones of the colonial war in Angola until
1975. This polygon is constructed based on news reports and cases studies of the fighting
between the Portuguese and MPLA, FNLA, and UNITA (Guimarães, 1998; Keesings, 2003;
Marcum, 1978). In the right-hand map, every region that is covered by the conflict polygon –
or more precisely, every Provincia that is reported to have been directly affected by the war –
is coded as constituting the conflict zone. While both methods of operationalization facilitate
analyses of spatial relationships (with the aid programs like SpaceStat or Spatial Analyst), the
latter method additionally allows conventional statistical examination using administrative
regions (combined with some measure of time) as the unit of analysis.

10
Figure 5. One Conflict, Two Possible Operationalizations (Angola 1966-1974)

Angola Angola

There are problems with selecting administrative regions as the baseline unit upon
which the conflict location data will be generated, though. In contrast to the nation-state,
which is a pretty constant phenomenon with relatively fixed boundaries, sub-national entities
intermittently undergo dramatic changes in outline as well as name. Yet, GIS maps of sub-
national regions are only available for the 1990s – at least on a global scale. Considering that
the temporal coverage of the conflict location project is the entire post-WWII period, this may
pose considerable trouble. The same problem (albeit not as pressing) goes for the nation-state
boundaries. To my knowledge, there exists no GIS map of the world prior to the 1990s, where
Eritrea is a part of Ethiopia, and Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union are consolidated states.
This is of course due to GIS data intentionally being used to visualize and analyze the
contemporary world, not the historical one. It is way beyond the scope of this project to
develop GIS maps for previous periods, even though it might not be a too tedious task
considering the abundance of maps and atlases produced during the last few decades.
Anyway, I still have not figured out how to deal with this problem.
Another problem with the second approach, the size of the political units differs
substantially from country to country, which might affect the accuracy of the conflict zones

11
(in particular the smaller ones) in a non-random fashion.8 Be that as it may, I still argue that
the benefits of using a fixed unit of observation for the location data greatly outweigh the
cons. Moreover, it might be appropriate to combine the two methods for the spatial analyses
whereas the spreadsheet database will be aggregated on the administrative unit level.
Thirdly, GIS programs are not designed to handle temporal data. As a consequence, it
is impossible (or at least complicated) to allocate more than one conflict to the same
administrative unit. Accordingly, several conflict maps will have to be generated to facilitate
spatial overlaps between conflict zones. This, in turn, causes problems when it comes to the
statistical analyses of temporally varying observations. Again, this is a challenge that I still
have not dealt with.

Vector vs. Raster Data

The conflict location data – regardless of the operationalization method – will be made up of
vectors. Vector data may be represented either as points, arcs (lines), or polygons (areas).
However, prior to the spatial regression analysis the vector data must be converted to raster
format. Raster data implies that the mapped features are represented as grid cells (pixels)
whose relative positions define their X- and Y-coordinates and whose values define what the
pixels represent (analogous to the process of scanning a photography). The conflict map may
for example be dummy-coded, where cells that belong to a conflict zone are assigned a value
of 1 and all others are assigned a value 0 (a binary raster map), or the conflict pixels may be
assigned values indicating the type of conflict.9 The size of the grid cells of the conflict map
should be in coherence with other relevant variables. Due to the relative uncertainty of the
conflict zone boundaries the grids should not be smaller than e.g. 10 x 10 kilometers, even

8
Conflicts that took place at a single location will be coded as affecting the entire administrative region. Since
smaller states generally have smaller administrative regions, this may constitute a potential flaw. For example,
according to CIA (2002) Cote d’ Ivoire (322,460 sq km) has 58 Departments compared to Russia’s (17,075,200
sq km) 49 Oblasts.

9
The Armed Conflict dataset distinguishes between four types of conflict; extrasystemic, interstate, intrastate,
and internationalized intrastate conflict.

12
though other data may be available on a higher scale of detail.10 Feil! Fant ikke
referansekilden. gives an example of how vector data may be converted to raster format.

Figure 6. Rasterization of Vector Data

Source: Bernhardsen (1999)

Available Variables in GIS Format

Spatial data on the location of armed conflicts require compatible data on relevant geographic
features if statistical assessments are to be conducted. Fortunately, some data are already
available. As previously mentioned, ESRI (1996) has released a comprehensive database that
includes many relevant features, including major cities and infrastructure. Further, UNEP
(2002a) has gathered gridded global population density data for 1990, and data for previous
decades exist for some regions (Africa and Latin America). Last year, UNEP (2002b) also
released a gridded mountain dataset with global coverage, and comparable forest data have
previously been collected by FAO (1999), see Figure 7. In addition, researchers at PRIO and
NTNU (Gilmore & Lujala, 2003) are currently working on a natural resource dataset that is
closely connected to the conflict location project.

10
FAO’s (1999) forest data are generated using 1 sq km grid cells whereas UNEP’s (2002) mountain data are
currently only available in 10 x 10 km size.

13
Figure 7. Distribution of Forest Cover in Angola

Forest data source: FAO (1999)

While a majority of relevant geographic variables are available for research, some of
the most frequently theorized conflict-promoting variables (which have significant in-country
variation) are still unavailable on a sub-national level. Among these, ethnicity is arguably the
most relevant one. Ethnic groups in many countries are concentrated to certain regions, and a
database on the geographical dispersion of ethnic and religious groups within countries is
most desirable. However, collecting information on the size of such groups at any sub-
national level would be immensely time-consuming, not to mention the challenge of
backdating the data. A simpler, more feasible approach would be to simply catalog the largest
ethnic group in each province, and code whether this group represents the majority or a
minority of the total population in the country. Statistics on regional mean level of
development as well as demographic data beyond population density are other variables that
remain desired.

IV Concluding Remarks
After some forty years of systematic conflict research we still know next to nothing about the
general interaction between geography and civil war. Numerous case studies, not to mention

14
classic military doctrine, suggest that terrain plays a crucial role affecting both the location
and duration of conflict. There is also hard evidence that natural goods, in particular diamonds
and drugs, are a major source of finance for warring parties, even though the direct causal
effect of primary commodities on armed conflict might be debatable. Furthermore, most
contemporary intrastate conflicts appear to be fought between groups of different ethnic
origin. Even so, empirical studies of conflict have been remarkably unsuccessful in linking
geography – in a broad sense – with war. I argue that failed empirical evidence may in part be
explained by inappropriate research designs and poor data. Rather than studying the countries
in conflict, we ought to focus on the conflicts and the characteristics of the actual conflict
zones. In order to do so, we need data on the sub-national location of armed conflicts.
This paper has briefly outlined ongoing work to develop digital conflict maps of the
location of all intrastate conflicts since 1946. Through GIS, the data permit statistical analyses
of spatial relationships and thus imply a huge step forward in the study of geography and
armed conflict. Analyzing the interaction between conflict and relevant geo-referenced
variables like population distribution, ethnic composition, natural resource deposits, and
terrain will certainly contribute to our understanding of why conflicts occur and how they
evolve. Moreover, knowledge on how such factors affect the likelihood and characteristics of
armed conflict, in combination with more traditional variables including regime type and
level of economic development, may be used to develop interactive models that can predict
future areas with increased risk of conflict.11
There are still a few obstacles that have to be conquered before the location data are
ready for systematic examination. The most imperative of these is the lack of GIS maps for
most of the temporal span of the conflict data. Further, until most relevant explanatory
variables for conflict research become available on a sub-national level, the location dataset
will be of modest use beyond purely spatial analyses of geographic variables. Hence, the
conflict location data should not be viewed as a replacement of established conflict datasets
and traditional analytical methods but rather a supplement designed particularly for
accounting for the spatial dimension of armed conflicts.

11
Indeed, researchers at the divisions of Geomatics and Resource Geology at NTNU have suggested developing
such a program as soon as the required data are available.

15
 Abbreviations
ESRI Environmental Systems Research Institute
FAO Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
GIS Geographical Information Systems
NTNU Norwegian University of Science and Technology
PRIO International Peace Research Institute, Oslo
UCDP Uppsala Conflict Data Project
UNEP United Nations Environment Programme

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