Data Vis Dispatch, May 23

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

Welcome back to the 94th 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 migrant labor, natural resources, and bats.

A Reuters investigation on the public health risks of increasing human-bat contact included a wealth of beautiful visualizations:

Reuters: The world’s bat lands are under attack, seeding risk of a new pandemic. Here’s where, May 16
Reuters: Deep in the Amazon, scientists race against time to identify unknown pathogens, May 16
Reuters: China, birthplace of the COVID pandemic, is laying tracks for another global health crisis, May 16

Charts on the environment covered natural resources and weather patterns:

The New York Times: Can the World Make an Electric Car Battery Without China?, May 16
The New York Times: The Colorado River Is Shrinking. See What’s Using All the Water, May 22
SBS News: ‘슈퍼 엘니뇨’가 온다는데 올 여름 정말 괜찮을까?, May 17
Georgios Karamanis: “Tornados for this week’s #TidyTuesday,” May 21 (Tweet, Code)

With still no deal to raise the U.S. debt ceiling, two charts explained how default might unfold:

The Wall Street Journal: When Could the U.S. Default Without a Debt Ceiling Deal?, May 22
The Washington Post: If the U.S. defaults, will it miss Medicare payments? What about Social Security? See what’s at risk, May 18

We got a look at recent real estate history in England and the U.S.:

The Wall Street Journal: In Today’s Housing Market, It’s Timing Over Location, May 19
Financial Times: How England’s flats turned into second-class housing, May 19
The Wall Street Journal: Home Prices Posted Largest Annual Drop in More Than 11 Years in April, May 18

And using two very different data sets, these charts both point out patterns that smell a little fishy:

The Pudding: They won’t play a lady on country radio, May 22
elDiario: Censos inflados a las puertas del 28M en la España que no sale en los titulares, May 18

Migrant labor was a breakout topic this week:

The Wall Street Journal: Immigrants’ Share of the U.S. Labor Force Grows to a New High, May 22
Kontinentalist: No Place to Work: The Risks and Realities of Migrant Labour in Singapore, May 22

And we saw great simple line and area charts on topics from Erdoğan’s electoral successes to suicide in South Korea — plus one unconventional chart from FiveThirtyEight to finish out the week:

Financial Times: How Erdoğan beat the odds: Turkey’s election in charts, May 16
The Economist: Sacking Tucker Carlson has put a dent in Fox News’s ratings, May 16
The Wall Street Journal: America’s Biggest Bank Is Everywhere—and It Isn’t Done Growing, May 21
The Economist: South Korea’s suicide rate fell for years. Women are driving it up again, May 22
FiveThirtyEight: How Consistent Was Every Premier League Lineup This Season?, May 23

What else we found interesting

Le Monde: Le captagon dope le narco-Etat syrien, May 20
The Washington Post: Audiences want a different climate change message. Hollywood should deliver, May 17
The Washington Post: Why birds and their songs are good for our mental health, May 18
ABC News: See your identity pieced together from stolen data, May 17

Plus: finalists for the Society for News Design’s annual awards, as well as this year’s Pulitzer Prize winners, including Mona Chalabi for her data illustrations on Jeff Bezos’ wealth.

Applications are open for…


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.

Want the Dispatch in your inbox every Tuesday? Sign up for our Blog Update newsletter!

Comments