To make India’s census documents more accessible to the public in the 1970s, the government worked on the Portrait of Population for the 1971 Census. Aman Bhargava and Vivek Matthew, for Diagram Chasing, explain the history of the publication and provide an archive of 700 hand-drawn charts from the publication.

Half a century later, what makes these documents worth looking at is the tremendous and earnest effort being made to render this data interesting and engaging. This was before data visualization became cheaper to produce digitally, which means every chart, every pictogram, and every illustrated comparison was an expensive decision in terms of time and effort, especially within the already stretched departments of the government. One can imagine the writers, artists, and designers (because that is what they were, even if the bureaucracy had not used those words) who produced these documents thinking about what would land with a reader holding this pamphlet.

Bring back efforts like this for all countries.

This week we put more information in the background to improve the signal in the foreground.

For most of history, maps of the Moon were based only on the near side, because that’s all we could see from Earth. Danny Robb of Inverting Vision gives a visual history lesson on how we eventually saw the rest.

We wouldn’t be able to get a better look at the far side of the Moon until we invented a way to send cameras there. At the dawn of the Space Age, rockets gave us the ability to do just that. In 1959, Soviet engineers created a series of robotic probes, and launched them toward the Moon. One of these managed a lunar flyby, and was named Luna 3. Engineers equipped Luna 3 with a film camera, capable of developing the exposed film, scanning the images, and transmitting them back to Earth by radio.

Over four years, Barbara Iweins cataloged every object she owns — all 12,795 of them — with a photo.

Longing for more stability in my life, I felt the urge to really lock myself into my new place. I decided then and there to push the limits of my inertia and neuroticism by getting up close and personal with my belongings and analyze all of them in detail.

From then on, for four years, room by room, drawer by drawer, I photographed, indexed and classified my entire house. Absolutely everything: from my daughters torn sock to my sons Lego, but also my vibrator, my anxiolytics… absolutely everything.

William S. Cleveland, one of the most respected statistical visualization researchers of all-time, passed on March 27, 2026 at 83 years old. From his obituary:

A pioneering statistician, Bill helped reshape how scientists analyze and visualize data, and was among the first to articulate the intellectual foundations of what is now called data science. Over a career spanning academia and Bell Laboratories, he championed the idea that statistics should center on learning from real data rather than on mathematical theory alone. His work on graphical methods transformed data visualization into a rigorous scientific discipline, and his books, The Elements of Graphing Data and Visualizing Data, became foundational texts for generations of researchers.

At Bell Labs, Bill worked alongside John Tukey and John Chambers. He contributed to a culture focused on hands-on data analysis and innovation in computing. In 2001, he outlined a vision for expanding statistics into “data science.” This vision integrated computation, subject-matter knowledge, and analytic thinking and has since become central to modern scientific practice.

Bill was a deeply respected scholar, colleague, and mentor, and his contributions to the field and to the institutions he served will be long remembered. His impact extended far beyond his research accomplishments. His insight, vision, and generosity influenced many, and his legacy will endure in the people and ideas he inspired.

If you work with charts, you’ve come across Cleveland’s research in one form or another. His studies on graphical perception influenced a generation of visualization researchers, which trickled down to the design of tools that data workers use every day.

For Al Jazeera, Mohamed A. Hussein and Mohammed Haddad provide a map of how Iran strategically observes and blocks the Strait of Hormuz from its islands and coastlines.

The first strategic island along the Strait of Hormuz is Larak Island.

While it is only about 49sq km (19sq miles), its position makes it a centrepiece of Iran’s maritime strategy and allows it to act as a natural observation deck and gatekeeper for maritime movement.

Since the start of the current war, Iran has rerouted selected vessels through a narrow corridor north of the island, inside its territorial waters.

This passage, monitored and controlled by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), acts as a “safe corridor” for approved ships, allowing transit under Iranian supervision.

You’ve likely seen the top-down maps of the strait by now that show a quick overview of the geography. In this piece, the zoom into specific geography features gives a better sense of scale and details of Iran’s defenses.

Trump spends a lot of time at his own hotels and golf clubs. Philip Bump has been keeping track since the first term. During this second term so far, Trump spent 170 days in office on his own properties, or 38%, and 80% of weekend days. That seems like a lot given the state of things.

The National Park Service and the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis publishes data on national parks annually, but it’s not always straightforward to access. Kyle Frost brought the data into one place so that it’s easier to view and download.

Decades of national park visitation and outdoor recreation economic data are buried in government spreadsheets. I built this to make it actually usable, whether you work in outdoor rec or just want to know how many people went to Yellowstone last year.

It looks like Great Smoky Mountains National Park is the most visited national park, by a lot.

Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace was published 30 years ago. To commemorate, Christian Swinehart made Infinite Digest, an illustrated companion to the book:

Now, 30 years after its initial publication, I’m revisiting Infinite Jest and exploring those old intuitions about its structure by visualizing them. Part reader’s guide and part analytical tool, this collection of interactive graphics is my attempt to give readers a unifying view of the book’s whirlwind of characters, narratives, and interlinked references.

The work is based on static graphics that Swinehart illustrated in 2021. They explore timelines, the endnotes, and character connections. So far, there is an interactive version for plot lines and footnote distribution. He also made the data available to download.

This week we look for ways to diverge towards the unexpected.

It’s that time of year again when we hear about how the plants are growing across the country. For the Washington Post, Ben Noll, John Muyskens, and Naema Ahmed have the maps for leaves and flowers.

Meteorological spring started March 1. The astronomical season started March 20. But there’s a third option: The season as decreed by the plants. They don’t follow any calendar and instead leaf out when it’s warm enough.

The first emergence of leaves can be estimated by temperatures since the start of the year. A certain amount of warmth needs to accumulate before leaves appear. This warmth is typically measured through a metric called growing degree days.

Alex Preston used AI in a book review for the New York Times and ended up lifting bits of a review from the Guardian. Emma Loffhagen reports for the Guardian:

Language that appears to be lifted from the Guardian review includes descriptions of characters – “lazy Machiavellian Stefano” appears as “lazy, Machiavellian Stefano” in the New York Times version – and the concluding assessment of the novel: the Guardian review states that the book is “most significantly a song of love to a country of contradictions, battered, war-torn, divided, misguided and miraculous: an Italy where life is costume and the performance of art, and where circuses spring up on wasteland”; while the New York Times version says the characters “populate what is ultimately a love song to a country of contradictions: battered, divided, misguided and miraculous. This is an Italy where life is performance, where circuses rise on wasteland.”

I’m pretty sure Preston is going to need a pseudonym soon.

NASA makes a lot of live data available about the Artemis II mission. Chad Ohman brought all the feeds into one place for a mission control-type dashboard, including if the toilet on board is a go. I guess there are other things too, such as location, measurements, and crew schedule.

It appears there is an upcoming film, Pressure, whose meteorologist main character deals with forecasting uncertainty for the weather on D-Day. It’s coming May 2026, and it’s based on a play from 2014.

Despite a prolonged heat wave, Stagg is convinced that the weather conditions will suddenly deteriorate sharply on June 5, the current date of the proposed D-Day, and that the planned invasion should therefore be postponed. Meanwhile, Krick believes forecasts of a calm sunny day on June 5 and believes that the plans should proceed as usual. While attempting to convince Eisenhower that his forecast of the weather conditions is correct, Stagg struggles with his own fear of potentially getting the forecast wrong.

I’m not much into war movies, but the preview shows maps, data collection, and real-world decisions with uncertainty attached and lives at stake. I’m pretty much required to watch this.

Gas prices are high across the U.S., more so in some places than in others. (Hello from California.) The New York Times has an interactive map of the average price by county. It loads initially by state and then you can zoom in for more details.

I think this is a riff on an older NYT map of the same data and structure, but I couldn’t find it. Maybe it was of temperature?

Either way, I’m a fan of maps that show the data directly through text. See also: most popular resident of every city, midterm challengers, the United States of surnames, London surnames, and how online daters describe themselves.

GlobalPetrolPrices tracks prices around the world for 150 countries, in case you’re wondering how your country compares. If you want to make it feel like you’re getting a bargain, try comparing against Hong Kong prices.

The first downlinked images were published by NASA. The best view of Earth’s night side.
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After demolishing the East Wing of the White House and rushing into construction of a ballroom, the administration was finally ordered to stop until the plans go through the necessary reviews. NYT’s the Upshot made notes on the ballroom design, which is more flashy than practical, such as a stairway to nowhere and fake windows.

I like the enhanced byline: “Junho Lee is a trained architect, Larry Buchanan studied fine arts, and Emily Badger has long written about urban planning.” Apparently NYT has been doing this for a few years.

For those who want to share small datasets in a more straightforward way, Ziptable by Evan Peck makes quick work of the task with a single link.

Ziptable lets you share a small CSV or JSON dataset by sending a single link. The person you send it to opens the link and immediately sees the data in their browser, ready to search, inspect, and download again. No attachments, no cloud storage workflow, and no account required.

Load a dataset. Ziptable compresses and encodes the data. You get a link without the data hitting up a server.

This week is about small things adding up to big things.