Spring is the time for the blossoming of cherry trees. Philadelphia has its own cherry blossom festival, but Washington’s is even bigger. The Washington Post put together a small infographic about the the trees, the symbolism, and the reason behind the presence of Japanese trees in the capital of the United States.
But, mostly I get to say we have a good example of a tree map.
Credit for the piece goes to Samuel Granados.
Boston has finally had it. And by it I mean the snowfall that broke the record. And by record I mean the record for the most snowfall in a year. Well, at least since they started recording it in 1872. The Washington Post has a nice chart placing the season not just in context, but also showing how quickly the snow fell. Most of the snow has fallen only from 25 January onward. And winter is not yet over.
Credit for the piece goes to Kevin Uhrmacher.
This is a short piece—it is only really an inline map—but it illustrates fairly well why Ukraine’s loss of Debaltseve in eastern Ukraine last week is kind of a big deal. Basically, the now mostly abandoned city is a transport hub linking the two quasi capitals of the Novorossiya.
Credit for the piece goes to Gene Thorp.
The Recession was not great for the 99%. It was, however, good for the 1%. How good? Well as data put together by the Economic Policy Institute indicates—and as reported by the Washington Post—it was very good. In only 1 of 49 states did the 99% fare better than the 1%. One state’s data was unavailable. This scatter plot compares the growth over the period of the two income groups. And as the reader can see, the growth was generally speaking not even close to being equal.
Credit for the piece goes to Niraj Chokshi and Jeff Guo.
For those knowing baseball, Max Scherzer has almost officially signed with the Washington Nationals for lots and lots of cold hard cash. Over $200 millions’ worth. But how do these big dollar contract pitchers compare over the years? Thankfully the Washington Post took a look at that for us.
Credit for the piece goes to Todd Lindeman.
Today is Friday. And that means it is time for the seriousness. So here you go, folks. Goats. All the goats. The US Agricultural Census recorded all the goats as of 2012. And so people can map that out. Thankfully the Washington Post did it for me.
Credit for the piece goes to the Washington Post graphics department.
Today’s post looks at peak income for the middle class. The Washington Post looked at peak median household income for each county in the United States. And for 81% of counties, that peak was over 15 years ago.
The really nice features of this piece are not actually the map, which is a standard choropleth map. Instead small multiples above the map breakdown the appearance of counties in each era bracket. And then to the right the user can compare a selected county against both the state and the United States. Overall, a very nice piece.
Credit for the piece Darla Cameron and Ted Mellnik.
I remember the internet from some of the earlier days. So when the Washington Post published this chart in a piece looking at the history of the popular sites on the Internet, well I felt old. Remember Geocities? Looking at this chart, how many of the old web companies can you recall? Does that make you feel old?
Credit for the piece goes to Philip Bump.
We hear a lot about deforestation around the world. But, in this piece from the Washington Post, we see how over the last century, Europe has actually managed to reverse that trend and reforest parts of the continent.
Credit for the piece goes to Rock Noack.
This piece has been sitting for a month, but I still enjoy it. The Washing Post maps out Russian air activity around NATO airspace over a two-day period.
Credit for the piece goes to Gene Thorp.
