Working with data from naturalearthdata.com and census.gov in Tableau and Cartodb, the map visualization shows current population density globally alongside a visualization by age and sex as well as population growth over time from 1950 to the present. These visualizations sought to begin exploring populations by region as the inherent complexity and inter-disciplinary nature of many core challenges within the natural and social sciences can be tackled through geovisualization, a field that attempts to link cartographic research activities in visualization with those in other information science disciplines.
This type of visualization seeks to provide insight into the structures and relationships contained within complex, linked datasets. Geospatial referencing represents an opportunity to link diverse forms of data needed to attack problems such as assessing the vulnerability of regions and their human populations to global environmental change, how to measure and sustain biodiversity, how to predict and cope with changing global and regional disease incidence patterns, and how to manage the increasing traffic flows of cities more effectively. The initial visualizations created here provide a foundation and further exploration and linking to diverse data sets might begin to answer more complicated issues.
As the the worldwide population visualization is meant to provide an overview of the entire data, the data is shown in a choropleth map, showing density globally. As the user scrolls over the map each city name is revealed and with a click, the user can explore specific cities by population. A monochrome scale was used for clarity in processing the single variable scale. A simple map displaying the outlines of continents was used, avoiding any legal-political boundaries and keeping in mind the fact that all map boundaries contain impressions of human culture.
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For added historical context, the line graph showing population growth from 1950 to the present is displayed alongside a graph charting population growth rate over the same period. While population by numbers shows an obvious steady increase, globally, the growth rate of the human population has been declining since peaking in 1962 and 1963.
The last visualization shows the current population by age and sex. While there are more young men, as the population gets older, women outnumber men, indicating the fact that women live longer—5 to 10 years longer than men according to Tom Perls, founder of the New England Centenarian Study at Boston University. Among people over 100 years old, 85% are women.
These visualization begin to explore world population and create a framework for further study. Future possible directions include layering further data with geospatial dimensions to answer pressing problems facing society that are inherently geospatial. It would be interesting to look into environmental change over time in relation to populations or the possibility of creating an animated visualization showing population growth over time alongside advances in medical science. The data could also be very interesting as part of a critical cartography project, displaying population over time in relation to political/social upheaval.