Dutch consortium to put entire population on the map

Two universities team up to chart social connections of 17 million residents

The population of the Netherlands is to be mapped out as a graph with 17 million nodes, connected by 39 billion edges, as part of a digital research project.

The project, called POPNET-SSH, will be led by Leiden University, the University of Amsterdam and Statistics Netherlands, a government body. The resulting digital infrastructure will represent all social relationships, ranging from siblings and neighbours to former classmates.