US National Emergencies Mapped

The novel coronavirus has plagued the world and the United States throughout 2020 and beyond. With a death count surpassing even the highest of early estimates, COVID-19 is incomparable to previous diseases. Even the most recent pandemic, 2009’s H1N1 (also known as “Swine Flu”), resulted in much fewer deaths.

But these diseases do have something in common: they each resulted in the declaration of a national emergency by the President of the United States. When this is proclaimed, the government can perform actions not normally allowed. Throughout American history, presidents have declared 69 of these emergency orders. Of these, 34 have since expired while another 35 are currently in effect, each having been renewed annually by the president.

To gain a better understanding of these emergencies, we’ll cover their eight categories, those that are current, and the presidents who declared the most. You can also view this information, and the location of each, on the map below.

View National emergencies in the United States in a full screen map

Each marker on the map comes from Wikipedia’s List of national emergencies in the U.S.. Each of these emergencies has been categorized, which you can read more about below.

National Emergency Categories

Most (46) of the U.S.’s national emergencies can be classified as sanctions (punishments one country puts on another country hoping for a change in behavior). Other common reasons for emergencies include:

• Trade (8)
• Military (5)
• Arms (3)
• Public health (2)
• Maritime (2)
• Economic (2)
• Legal (1)

Only one of the eight trade emergencies has remained intact: the Continuation of Export Control Regulations. As for military emergency orders, two of the five are ongoing: one from the 9/11 terrorist attacks and the 2019 Declaring a National Emergency Concerning the Southern Border of the United States. You can group the map by the rest of the national emergencies to learn more. Otherwise, let’s take a closer look at how many emergency orders remain to this day.

The 35 Current National Emergencies

“Current” national emergencies include those that were created in the same year or emergency orders from previous years the current president renewed. As of early November 2020, 34 national emergencies have ended while 35 are current. Below you’ll find the current emergency declarations, starting with the most recent.

Of the 35 current national emergencies, seven were enacted by the recent Trump administration. That leaves 28 emergency orders in effect from past administrations the current president has continuously renewed. The oldest of these is the: Blocking Iranian Government Property (Executive Order 12170) from Jimmy Carter, who ordered the freezing of Iranian assets as part of the U.S. response during the Iran hostage crisis on November 14th, 1979.

The most recent national emergency is, of course, Declaring a National Emergency Concerning the Novel Coronavirus Disease COVID-19 Outbreak (Proclamation 9994) proclaimed by Donald Trump on March 13, 2020. Let’s see how the numbers of national emergencies of the recent president compare to his predecessors.

Presidents Who Declared the Most Emergency Orders

While ‘most national emergencies’ isn’t a typical goal of a new POTUS, there’s no denying some U.S. presidents declared more than others. And only one has proclaimed 15+ national emergencies throughout his terms. So which president was the host with the most? That honor goes to #42—Bill Clinton.

• Clinton – 17 national emergencies
• Bush – 13
• Obama – 12
• Trump – 7
• Reagan – 6
• Bush (H.W.) – 5

Of the 17 national emergencies Bill Clinton declared, 11 are no longer in effect. That leaves six that remain to this day. These can further be broken down into four of the national emergency categories: sanctions (11), trade (3), arms (2), and maritime (1) emergencies.

Aside from Clinton, both George W. Bush and Barack Obama declared more than ten national emergencies throughout their time in office. Two of Bush’s 13 proclamations followed the September 11 attacks. The first was the Declaration of National Emergency by Reason of Certain Terrorist Attacks on September 14 which was followed on September 23 by the Blocking Property and Prohibiting Transactions With Persons Who Commit, Threaten To Commit, or Support Terrorism. Both of these are still in effect, along with nine others.

Find More Meaning in Location Data

Each of the U.S.’s 69 Executive Orders or Proclamations were passed by the U.S. President to protect the country. Many were a result of issues inside the U.S. like Declaring a National Emergency Concerning the Novel Coronavirus Disease COVID-19 Outbreak (Proclamation 9994). However, some were in response to international incidents, i.e. Blocking Property of Persons Threatening the Peace, Security, or Stability of Yemen (Executive Order 13611).

As you saw on the map, Afghanistan and Russia were the subjects of the most emergency orders at four each while Iran was a hot topic of three. This is the sort of insight we may have missed had we just kept the data stored in Google Sheets or Excel.

When your spreadsheet contains geographic data like addresses, coordinates, or even just countries and the occasional city, how can you be expected to analyze the information? In these instances, free mapping tools like BatchGeo can help you find more meaning in your data with customizable maps.