Data Vis Dispatch, December 20

The best of last week’s big and small data visualizations

Welcome back to the 73rd edition of Data Vis Dispatch! Every week, we’ll be publishing a collection of the best small and large data visualizations we find, especially from news organizations — to celebrate data journalism, data visualization, simple charts, elaborate maps, and their creators.

Recurring topics this week include the FIFA World Cup Final, the war in Ukraine, and a snowy Christmas.

The FIFA World Cup in Qatar ended with Argentina’s win in the final match against France on Sunday. The last week of the tournament brought plenty of football-filled data vis, with a spotlight on the winning team’s captain Lionel Messi.

Krisztina Szűcs: 2022 FIFA WORLD CUP, December 18
Folha de S.Paulo: Chutes e gols de fora da área são exceção na Copa do Qatar, December 15
The Washington Post: Kylian Mbappé wins the Golden Boot, but it doesn’t matter to Lionel Messi, December 18
Folha de S.Paulo: Veja os números que deram a Messi o troféu de melhor jogador da Copa, December 18
El País: ¿Qué ha necesitado Messi para ganar su Mundial? Unas estadísticas increíbles, December 18

With Christmas time around the corner, many newsrooms have looked at the likelihood of snow during the holiday season. Bloomberg went in a different direction and explored the popularity of Christmas-themed songs.

Bloomberg: Retailers Know What Your Shopping Experience Needs: Holiday Music, December 16
CBC News: Will it snow this Christmas?, December 14
The Guardian: Snow chance: how white Christmases have become rarer in Britain, December 16
USA Today: Major winter storm to bring significant weather hazards across the US, December 13
The Washington Post: See how much snow your hometown gets for the holidays, December 15

In Ukraine, the war continues despite the cold. As the Russian army builds trenches, Kyiv faces frequent blackouts. Other related charts cover economic impacts and changing trends in political freedom.

Volodymyr Agafonkin: Visualizing Blackouts at Home in Kyiv, December 16
The New York Times: Defenses Carved Into the Earth, December 14
The Financial Times: Russia’s wartime economy: learning to live without imports, December 14
The Financial Times: How Putin’s technocrats saved the economy to fight a war they opposed, December 16
SBS News: Person of the Year, December 14

Europe is learning to limit its gas consumption.

De Tijd: Het jaar van de gaskraan en de stroomprijs, December 19

The war in Ukraine is causing trouble outside of Europe too. It’s one of the main contributing factors to the escalating food crisis in Africa.

Reuters: Africa’s food crisis is the biggest yet – five reasons why, December 14
The Economist: Somalia is on the brink of famine, December 19

Above-average temperatures cause concern in France, while Germany explores the link between flu outbreaks and air quality.

Le Monde: Climat : 21 jours anormalement froids en France en 2022, contre 125 jours plus chauds que la moyenne, December 13
Stuttgarter Zeitung: Feinstaub treibt Grippewellen an, December 16

Other notable data vis of the week covered divisions in the Malaysian government, the rise of synthetic opioids in the U.S., the imbalance of German forests, crops grown along French railways, the effects of dams on the Mekong river, and finally, the most popular human names for dogs.

The Straits Times: How a divided Malaysia gave rise to Perikatan Nasional’s ‘teal tsunami’, December 17
The Wall Street Journal: The Tragic Rise of Fentanyl, Mapped, December 14
Süddeutsche Zeitung: Wie geht es dem Wald?, December 14
mtmx.com: PLM en train, December 19
Reuters: Starving the Mekong, December 15
The Washington Post: The most popular people names for dogs, December 16

What else we found interesting

Süddeutsche Zeitung: Werdet erwachsen!, December 16
The New York Times: Inside Mar-a-Lago, Where Thousands Partied Near Secret Files, December 15

Help us make this dispatch better! We’d love to hear which newsletters, blogs, or social media accounts we need to follow to learn about interesting projects, especially from less-covered parts of the world (Asia, South America, Africa). Write us at hello@datawrapper.de or leave a comment below.

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