Normal vs. paranormal distributions

Due to budget cuts, there is no plan for an updated atlas. So I recreated the original 1870 Atlas using today’s publicly available data.

People get married at various ages, but there are definite trends that vary across demographic groups. What do these trends look like?

There are rules—usually for specific chart types meant to be read in a specific way—that you shouldn’t break. When they are, everyone loses. This is that small handful.

I almost didn’t make a best-of list this year, but as I clicked through the year’s post, it was hard …