The true apex predator of modern economies? The vampire! Vampires don’t chase hot stock tips. They buy castles, scarce land and productive assets… then quietly feast on compound interest for 400 years. If vampire economics is real, must our governments employ vampire hunters? buff.ly/XRlOnLT

Journalism from @nytimes international articles since 2000 (n≈199,000) turned into a map. We see which topics were covered disproportionately. HT @tedalcorn

In other languages the "funny bone" has rather funny names...

It's the early 1930s and you travel from London to Cairo via train. Imagine what this would've felt like. Exhausting, exhilarating, dangerous? This lovely animated map by @viola__alba allows us to dream about traveling the old Orient Express.

John Snow’s famous 1854 cholera map didn’t actually stop the outbreak in Soho. By the time the map was produced, the outbreak was fading. What the map did do was far more important: it helped prove that cholera was waterborne, laying the foundations for modern epidemiology. HT @Julian_H0ffmann

On this wonderful map @blambertcarto shows us Europe and Its cities. Gorgeous piece.

You already know that Chile is a long country that looks a bit like a 🌶️ but did you know Chile is curved like a 🍌 too?

Watching this video I realised that I almost always used the most commonly used browser.

Ukraine is slowly regaining control of some Russian controlled territory.

The "hot and cold" view of planet Earth.

Richard Edes Harrison’s hotel map of New York turned a simple hotel advertisement into art. Drawn in the early 1930s for the Herald Square Hotel, the bird’s-eye map bends the Earth itself to dramatise Manhattan’s scale and energy. Source: buff.ly/D8AF89d

A map is never neutral. Richard Harrison’s 1940 “oil drop projection” showed the world as Standard Oil executives saw it: Texas, Venezuela and Aruba at the centre, less profitable regions pushed to the margins. Cartography as corporate worldview. Beautiful and brutal. Source:

Dependency ratio doesn’t sound very interesting but it changes your country massively. Italy's demographic decline can be described by this measure. In 1950 there were 8 workers for each retiree. By 2050 there will only be 1.5 workers for each retiree.

Crazy geography trivia by @xruiztru.

Here the Old London Bridge appears in the modern Thames and removed the current one next to it. Completed in 1209, this structure remained the City of London’s sole river crossing until 1729. It stood for over 600 years before its demolition in 1831. Its successor opened in 1973. HT @Julian_H0ffmann

People like beautiful, traditional buildings. Shocking. A visual preference survey found Dutch architectural tastes broadly align with British and US results. AI will make such surveys cheaper and more common. Good. Let’s ask people what they actually like and then build accordingly: buff.ly/2UVd8lc

What are you looking at? What you see (or at least what you are theoretically looking at) across the ocean from the US is changing constantly as you move along a crooked coastline. Explore more maps like this here: buff.ly/8sA2fcC

When the world gets you down, just remember the wonderful variety of dumplings out there...

US Latinos by themselves would rank as the 5th largest global economy. Source: www.latinometrics.com/articles/new...

This relationship map of the penguins at the Kyoto Aquarium is wild. It shows love triangles, friendships, enemies, and much more. Each penguin wears an armband that allows visitors to identify each penguin. Best soap opera in the country!!! Source: buff.ly/2bp5VFc

Finland, what are you preparing for?

The men that are disappearing from the workforce aren't turning into stay-at-home dads or homemakers, rather they just become completely disengaged. This is an issue of the highest urgency. Chart source: buff.ly/F5wE6D0 My column on the issue in Australia: buff.ly/EsSZKGI

This chart shows my personal mortality probability (assuming I am in the US) as a 43 year old male. Have a look at your personal mortality chart in this interactive visual: buff.ly/sLijE4X

While the data is a bit out of date the message rings even truer today. The US stock market sees occasional steep falls but the long view still suggests that betting against the US economy is a bad idea. HT @flowingdata

Words matter. They especially matter when talking about likelihoods. As it turns out we have different ideas what type of likelihood we link with certain descriptors. Source: buff.ly/lsjYx0d

In 1927, the last wild European bison was shot. The bison was fully extinct in the wild, surviving only in zoos. A century later, thousands roam Europe again. Proof that conservation can work and that even seemingly doomed species can make a comeback.

This animation by @electricitymaps shows CO2 Intensity of electricity consumption. We see hourly readings over a 20 day period. The overall mean is represented by the blue asterisk.

This animated globe by @toddrjones shows us all McDonald's on the planet.

“Books that make you dumb” is a hilarious dataviz, linking favourite books listed on Facebook to average SAT scores. Lolita and 100 Years of Solitude score high. James Patterson scores low. Terry Pratchett fans win. Remember: Correlation, not causation. Don’t burn your beach reads (or The Bible).

This chart by @SteveStuWill shows the most male-typical and female-typical reasons for hospital admissions in England (NHS data 2022–25). Women don't fall of scaffolding and men don't give birth.

This time of year (mid-May) is when Germany, Japan, UK, and China celebrate their national Overshoot Day. That's when the planet’s annual biocapacity budget would be used up if everyone on Earth consumed as much as the residents of that particular country. Source: buff.ly/2QAbOkn

Another great graphic by @ryanburge shows how different religious groups in the US answer the question about sexual relations between two adults of the same sex.

Young people are socialising less often.

My favourite overlay #map so far: The Roman Empire compared to the USA. Source: buff.ly/2tJOwFS

I’m pretty sure Tobleronistan is still my favorite country 😉

Dataviz of the day

Statistical fallacies that you will want to avoid. Source: buff.ly/2YCJBHK

Great little piece by @semi_rad.

This World #History Timeline shows the main superpowers and dynasties over the last 5000 years. Gorgeous piece of work. These type of charts really help to understand who ruled at the same time on the other side of the globe. Love it! Source: buff.ly/2qiP1Wo

If you have this weird gut feeling that the rich pay little tax in the US, your gut is spot on... Source: buff.ly/47aFkTG

A quick animated history of the United States.

In almost all US states reading scores dropped almost a full grade in just the last decade. That’s catastrophic. One surefire way to set yourself apart these days is to establish a regular reading habit. Source: buff.ly/EPELiQr

This graphic by Sina Doukas will feel familiar to parents. Cities are designed around adult walking speeds. But a 1.5km trip takes a 4-year-old up to 50 minutes and a 2-year-old up to 90. Kids stop, explore and wander. Good urban design caters to children too.

This map shows Europe and Northern Africa from an unfamiliar perspective. We get to feel just how narrow the Strait of Gibraltar really is, how ship have to squeeze between the Atlas Mountains of North Africa and the Iberian Peninsula. Source: buff.ly/T2XDvog

The coming decline of the Chinese population (marked in red on the cart) is going to be GIGANTIC but not without historic precedent. Mexico and Peru saw bigger declines during colonialism. The infamous Irish decline is also clearly visible: buff.ly/4mgxO9Y

Construction costs rarely fall because construction doesn't behave like manufacturing. Every building is a prototype, built outdoors, by dozens of subcontractors, under changing regulations and labour shortages. Source: buff.ly/9zDHzO0

This map shows the mood European TV detectives are in. An astute observation by @MisterABK.

This lovely map shows our beloved Earth 70 million years ago. Earth didn’t have much less continental crust, it simply had less dry land. A hotter, mostly ice-free planet plus shallower ocean basins pushed sea levels hundreds of metres higher, flooding low-lying continents. Source: buff.ly/tjDJalC

The graphic is awful but the data is very interesting. Young people in Germany are much less likely to have had sex than just 6 years ago (pre-pandemic). Source: buff.ly/YElaRJj

Most (but not all!) countries give their speeches at the UN General Assembly in English.