Data Vis Dispatch, January 7

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

Welcome back to the 175th edition of the Data Vis Dispatch — the first of the new year! Every week, we publish 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.

It was a quiet week in data visualization, as journalists and readers slowly return from vacation — but recurring topics included an earthquake in Tibet, plane crash in Korea, and predictions for 2025.

With December 31 behind us, we can finally take a comprehensive look back at 2024 — a year of hot weather, rising stocks, and stick-horse riding:

Zeit Online: Haben Sie es in Ihrem Ort gemerkt? 2024 war es so warm wie nie [Have you noticed it in your area? 2024 was warmer than ever], January 3
The Washington Post: Stocks surged in 2024 even as Americans fretted over the economy, December 31
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung: Fünf Sporttrends für 2025 [Five sports trends for 2025], January 6

Of course, it’s also the last call on predictions for 2025. You might get the flu and waste a lot of time on social media:

Financial Times: Flu season ‘one of the worst’ on record as cases jump in England, January 3
Bloomberg: Here’s (Almost) Everything Wall Street Expects in 2025, January 1
Gulrez Khan: “THINK YOU DON’T HAVE TIME TO READ? This graph represents the average number of books you could read in a year with the time you spend on social media,” January 1 (Bluesky)

But the year is already underway. Its first big natural disaster is an earthquake in Tibet:

The Guardian: Tibet earthquake: scores dead and hundreds of homes damaged, January 7
The New York Times: Strong Earthquake Hits Remote Tibet in Western China, Killing Dozens, January 6

A much smaller quake was recorded in Northern California:

The New York Times: 4.7-Magnitude Earthquake Strikes Northern California, January 6

Other visualizations grappled with the human disasters that closed out the past year. There was an airplane crash in Seoul:

The New York Times: How the Jeju Air Plane Crashed: Timeline, Maps and Photos, December 31
The Wall Street Journal: How Do People Survive Plane Crashes That Kill Nearly Everyone Else?, January 6

And two attacks in the United States:

The Wall Street Journal: In Two Attacks, a Pair of Unraveling Lives and Remaining Mysteries, January 3
The Wall Street Journal: From Bronze Star to Baffling End: Green Beret Named in Vegas Tesla Explosion Stuns Army, January 2

This is the coldest part of the year — but the years themselves are only getting warmer:

The New York Times: Cold Snap Is Forecast to Grip Much of the United States, January 2
Financial Times: How climate change is redrawing Europe’s wine map, December 31

These visualizations looked at big economic issues like inequality, growth, and (illicit) international trade:

Financial Times: Inequality hasn’t risen. Here’s why it feels like it has, January 3
The Wall Street Journal: China’s Economy Is Burdened by Years of Excess. Here’s How Bad It Really Is, January 1
Reuters: How Iran moves sanctioned oil around the world, January 7

Other topics included everything from the journey of Jimmy Carter’s body to the Strait of Malacca:

The Washington Post: Jimmy Carter’s journey home: Mapping the funeral plans for the coming days, December 31
The Washington Post: The fate of nearly 1,600 Jan. 6 defendants depends on Donald Trump, January 6
The Wall Street Journal: What the End of Unrwa Would Mean for Palestinians, January 2
Gaëlle Sutton: “Le détroit de Malacca – Pour cette première carte de l’année, j’ai choisi le détroit de Malacca, qui relie l’océan Indien à l’océan Pacifique et permet le passage de 94 000 bateaux par an” [“The Straits of Malacca – For this first map of the year, I’ve chosen the Straits of Malacca, which link the Indian and Pacific Oceans and allow the passage of 94,000 ships a year”] January 6 (Tweet)

What else we found interesting

South China Morning Post: The sky as a canvas: the artistry and science of drone shows, December 31
The Wall Street Journal: Why Breakfast Is Busting Your Food Budget, January 1
The Wall Street Journal: U.S. Surgeon General Calls for Cancer Warnings on Alcoholic Beverages, January 3

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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