A comic strip about using graphs to manage life:
Geotagging Visualization of Philadelphia
Geospatial visualization is a fascinating field and we plan on covering it more here on GraphGraph. In my other moonlighting gig, I write for Geekadelphia, my first post was on Geotagging Philadelphia, based on the “Locals and Tourists” project that Eric Fischer put together.
I’m linking to it because I think Eric’s project is a fantastic example of real insight from mashing data with maps. I analyzed Philadelphia because it’s my home, so I encourage you to look at your city and see what information you can learn about where you live.
Top 10 Most Popular Cities in North America
Can you name the ten most populous cities in North America?
I tried and I know that I didn’t get them all. Specifically, I missed a few cities of our neighbors to the south in Mexico and the north in Canada, which probably speaks to my poor knowledge of geography more than anything else.
Here is the list (taken from Wikipedia), compiled based on the most recent census data from each county:
| Rank | Country | City | Population | Census Year |
| 1 | Mexico | Mexico City | 8,873,017 | 2010 |
| 2 | USA | New York City | 8,175,133 | 2010 |
| 3 | USA | Los Angeles | 3,792,621 | 2010 |
| 4 | USA | Chicago | 2,695,598 | 2010 |
| 5 | Canada | Toronto | 2,503,281 | 2006 |
| 6 | USA | Houston | 2,100,017 | 2010 |
| 7 | Canada | Montréal | 1,854,442 | 2006 |
| 8 | Mexico | Tijuana | 1,784,034 | 2009 |
| 9 | Mexico | Ecatepec de Morelos | 1,658,806 | 2010 |
| 10 | USA | Philadelphia | 1,556,396 | 2010 |
It’s nice to have them all in a list, but if we graph this data we can hopefully get some additional value from this information.
Continue reading “Top 10 Most Popular Cities in North America”
My Halloween Candy In Graphs
Halloween usually means candy. Less commonly, Halloween means making geeky graphs on the distribution of candy you give out to Trick-or-Treaters.
This is the first Halloween at my new house, so we didn’t know what to expect. So, why not graph out everything?
The Stats
- 419 Treats, 379 Treats taken by Trick-or-Treaters
- 189 Trick-or-Treaters
- 2 Hours of Trick-or-Treating
- 2.01 Treats taken per Trick-or-Treater
Total Candy
Yes, I counted all the candy. Geekier still, I graphed the starting percentages and ending percentages.
What does it all mean? Are sugary candies less popular in my neighborhood than straight-up chocolate?
Most Valuable Cities in “Ticket To Ride”
Update 2016-08-14: This article was translated to Japanese by the team at Big Cats Game Blog.
Ticket To Ride is a great board game where the premise is that you’re a railroad baron at the start of the 20th Century. Along the way you collect “Destination Tickets” and you need to need to connect up two specific cities to score extra points.
Not all cities are created equal, however. Some cities are represented on “Destination Tickets” more frequently, and some cities only have a few pathways into and out of the city.
We calculated the Most Valuable Cities in Ticket To Ride through a simple formula. Add up the number of points that you get with a given city, and divide it by the number of paths connecting up that city.
For example, New York City has 57 points associated with it, but there are four paths into the city in a 2 or 3 player game, and seven paths in a 4 or 5 player game. Compare that to Miami, which is worth 50 points but only has three paths regardless of how many people are playing. This make Miami and much more “valuable” city to connect up with.
Essentially, the more “valuable” a city, the sooner you need to establish a train line into it. If not, you run the risk of being cut off from any current points you have in your hand, and any future bonus points from already having a connection there.
We’ve crunched the numbers for the US Map and for all four versions of the game (Original, 1910, Big Cities, and Mega Game) and produced a PDF for your reference to use while you’re playing.
“Ticket To Ride” Most Valuable Cities downloadable PDF
And since we’re a site all about graphs, we offer some key information in graph form.
Stanley Cup 2011 Sparklines
I’ll share with you the graph that inspired me to create the site. I originally published it on my personal blog, but I thought it was worth re-sharing since it started the ball rolling for GraphGraph.com.
“How many minutes has each team led in the Stanley Cup?” wondered fellow GraphGraphian Andrew as we were watching the tail end of Game 5 of the 2011 Stanley Cup.
After Game 6 concluded, Boston tied the series at 3 games a piece. Using the Sparkline feature in Excel 2010, I looked at the minute-by-minute scores and the results are interesting. Despite the series being all square at that point at 3-3, Boston dominated minutes lead 164 to 36 (45% to 10%).
After a dominating Game 7, Boston lead 50% of the minutes compared to Vancouver which only lead 9%.
I also took a look back at the last time Vancouver was in a Game 7 final in the Stanley Cup, and that was 1994 when they faced the New York Rangers.
The conclusions that I can draw from seeing this:
- While in both years the series went to seven games, minutes lead was more evenly distributed in 1994. In 2011 the games they won, they took the lead late. Meanwhile the games they lost, the lost the lead early on.
- A win/loss sparkline setup, along with clear color distinction can give an easy view of the trends across the minutes of a game in a setup that hockey fans can easy understand.
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