Health Outcomes Maps

The County Health Rankings website (www.countyhealthrankings.org) ranks the health of people in each county by state.  While this doesn't tell the overall health of people, it shows which counties are healthier, overall, than others in the state.  These interesting maps were created by Forum One, a Web design and communications firm that specializes in socially conscious causes.

In addition to the map, visitors can view the underlying data by county.  This includes data ranging from smoking and binge drinking rates to liquor store density, air pollution days and single parent households.

Visualizing the News

Newsmap.jp pulls data and maps the size of the headline based on how many articles are written about the topic.  The site is customizable by country, type of news, and by period of time.  While not the way I want to get most of my news, it is an interesting way to visualize the news. 

Interestingly this type of visualization would have been nearly impossible 15 years ago.  I remember some students spending hours and hours scouring Lexis-Nexus data to come up with news trends in the mid 1990s... now, it is considered an interesting way to view the news, but few would question that the data is readily at our fingertips.

Wolfram Tones

Create your own unique music with WolframTones.  One of the great sites from the Mathematica and Wolfram series of sites - the clear leader in Mathematics and Science modelling on the Web.

Wolfram Tones allows users to create music using unique inputs such as types of instruments, roles, rhythm, pitch, and tempo.  All music can be saved, downloaded or emailed.

So why have show a music site on Chart Planet?  Because it also shows an interesting visualization for each unique set of criteria selected (see image on left as an example.

Friction Force on a Car in a Turn - Wolfram Demonstrations Projects

If you haven't seen the Wolfram suite of mathematics and science sites, then you are missing out on the premiere resource math and science on the web.  The Wolfram Demonstrations Project site, for example, has over 6,000 visualizations to make many complex math and science concepts very accessible.

One example is the friction force on a car in a turn (pictured at left).  Others include human walking animation, an analysis of the frequency of character pairs (important for cryptologists among others), to geometric visualizations such as triacontahedron stellations.

Take a look - you will not be disappointed.

The Web is Dead

Wired magazine asserts that The Web is Dead in their September 2010 issue.  Instead of browsing the Web, Internet traffic is now focused on videos, games and specific apps.  This chart shows the rise and fall of Web Traffic (and email, FTP and other activities) as a percent of overall traffic on the Internet.

View the full chart in Wired Magazine

Pick Hindu to be Rich

This chart shows the wealth of followers of various religions in the United States by looking at the income brackets for adherents.  Hindus have the largest portion, by far, of those earning $75,000+ per year.

I like the way this chart is a modified bar chart to create the rainbow pattern instead of the normal rectangle.  The houses of worship at the bottom is another nice touch.  Having the overall US average in the middle is useful as well.  

Original chart may be found at the GOOD.is Web Site.

Baseball Games Getting Longer Over Time

Did you know that baseball games have gotten longer over time?  Since the 1970s baseball games have become over 20 minutes longer, on average.  This chart shows the length of all games from 1970 until 2009.  Interestingly, the red lines show the time when steroids are thought to have been most prevalent in baseball... which certainly correlates to the increased games times (I'll not speculate as to causation). Leave a comment about why you think baseball games are going longer.

Thanks to Revolutionanalytics.com for the chart.

Jobs Lost Under Bush and Obama

This interesting chart shows the number of jobs lost under Bush and Obama administrations. Many politicians, but few economists, would suggest a direct correlation between the change of administrations and the change in the jobs picture. But still, and interesting perspective. Chart from Business Insider.

Life Expectancy by Income Level

This Gapminder Chart shows a variety of factors in one chart:

• Life expectancy at birth
• GDP per person
• Continent (color coded)
• Country population (size of circle)

Of note: Zimbabwe is lowest in terms of both life expectancy and GDP per person. Neighboring South Africa is much richer, but the life expectancy is still very low.

Browser Wars

This extremely creative chart shows the rise and fall of Web browsers since 2002. Each browser is represented by a soldier, some of whom are still standing, and some who have fallen to the browser wars. Thanks to SimpleComplexity.com for the link.

This chart combines art with data by showing the data as a train of blood for fallen soldiers, or a waving flag for those still surviving. I also love how the shields show the browser logo on them.

Know of any other charts similar to this? If so leave a comment.

Unemployment Across America

This chart from Slate.com shows the changing picture of unemployment across America by locality. You can see unemployment for a specific month, and by region.

The chart looks good, but performs poorly. It takes a long time to load and can be slow to perform. Still, it makes for an interesting look at how regionalized the jobs and employment picture is across America.

Energy Usage and Emissions

This creative chart shows the various sources of waste emissions into the atmosphere, where they came from, and how the energy is being consumed. Follow the arrows to see how agriculture, transportation and changing land usage contribute to pollution.

Source: World Resource Institute

Federal Budget - Where Your Money Goes

Here are two complimentary charts:


2011 Budget Proposal


The first one, from the New York Times, shows Obama’s 2011 Budget Proposal including the ability to see which parts of the budget would increase and decrease. The size of the various squares gives a good perspective of how the Federal government spends money.

YOUR Tax Dollars at Work

The second chart allows you to put in how much you paid in Federal Taxes. It will then show you how your tax dollars are being used. This makes it all a lot more personal than the overall 3+ trillion budget, because it is the money YOU are paying in taxes.

Thanks to the National Priorities Project for this useful tool.

How Much Water do You Use

This chart shows average water consumption for daily activities. The average person consumes less than 3 gallons a day flushing the toilet, but it takes 33 gallons to make a bottle of soda and 1,500 gallons to make a pound of beef. So go on a soda diet to help the environment.

Colors of the World

This chart shows the proportional colors for each nation's flag. Try looking at each color pie charts and guessing which flag goes with it. Click on a pie chart to see each flag.

At the bottom of the page you can see that red and white make up over 50% of all colors shown on the world's flags.

How People Spend Their Time

This fantastic, interactive chart shows how different groups of people spend their time each day. The New York Times allows you to drill down by activity, age, sex, race, education and parental status.

Mostly what I learned is that the more kids you have, the less sleep you get.

Spending by the UK Government

Great chart showing relative size of spending by UK government. Interactive enough that you can zoom in to see details. It also shows the growth or contraction in each area. Compare this to the US budget chart above and let me know which you like more. Source: The Guardian

Public Spending by UK government department

Where does the money go? U.S. Family Expenditures

Interesting chart showing average US consumer spending by family by the Department of Labor. Thanks to Frugal Hacks for the chart.



I like how the average American consumer unit (i.e. family) spends about:

• 4 times as much on alcohol ($457) as on reading material ($118)
• Twice as much on apparel ($1,881) as on education ($945)
• $323 on smoking, and twice as much ($639) on housekeeping