This map was published in 1985 by Vincent C. Jones in his book Manhattan: The Army and the Atomic Bomb. It represents the site where the Trinity test was conducted in 1945.
The Trinity test was the first nuclear weapon test, carried out in New Mexico, United States. For safety reasons, the location had to be remote and unpopulated, as well as flat and free of structures that could be damaged. It also had to be windless, to minimise the impact of radiation after the test. Initially, eight possible locations were considered, most of them in New Mexico, but also areas in southern California, Texas and Colorado.
This site was chosen on 7 September 1944. On the map, in the upper left corner, you can see the distance to the Los Alamos test site, a town created to house the scientists working on the Manhattan Project. The rest of the map shows the terrain and structures located at various distances from the test site.
Interestingly, despite the fact that one of the premises was that the area was unpopulated, nearly half a million people lived within 250 kilometres of the test site. As a result, the Manhattan Project medical team requested that tests be carried out on all these people to ensure that there had been no collateral damage. This never happened, and even today, the United States government continues to be held accountable for the damage caused to the inhabitants of the area.
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