Data Vis Dispatch, November 18: Lunar missions, butterflies, and the #30DayMapChallenge

Welcome back to the 219th 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 recent lunar missions, the journeys of monarch butterflies, and the #30DayMapChallenge.

This Dispatch does not begin on Earth, but rather on the Moon, whose southern hemisphere has been particularly busy lately.

The Economist: <a href="https://www.economist.com/the-world-ahead/2025/11/12/eight-trends-to-watch-explained-with-maps"><strong>Eight trends to watch, explained with maps</strong></a>, November 12 <span class="badge">7 more maps with 7 more topics</span> — The Economist: **Eight trends to watch, explained with maps**, November 12 7 more maps with 7 more topics

Anna Diederichs: "Milestones in lunar exploration. Not a perfect visualization, but a new process for me. I started with a shaded relief in GMT and ended in Blender to make this 3d animation," November 17 (LinkedIn)

Back on Earth, many things are in flux. Billionaires are migrating, U.S. voter groups are shifting, and investments in semiconductors are being reorganized. Some of these flows are visualized in a particularly flowy way.

Wesley Stubenborn: "New from me: An interactive data visualization showing billionaire migration: paths from birthplace to most recent residence for > 3,100 of the world’s richest individuals," November 11 (Bluesky, Billionaire Migration map)

The New York Times: <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/15/us/politics/latino-voters-new-jersey.html?unlocked_article_code=1.1U8.5wiP.dXvclVUDFyDc&smid=url-share"><strong>Maps Show How Latinos Who Shifted Right in 2024 Snapped Back Left in 2025</strong></a>, November 15 — The New York Times: **Maps Show How Latinos Who Shifted Right in 2024 Snapped Back Left in 2025**, November 15

McKinsey & Company: <a href="https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/week-in-charts/fdi-fuels-chip-shift"><strong>FDI fuels chip shift</strong></a>, November 13 — McKinsey & Company: **FDI fuels chip shift**, November 13

Another topic on the move: mobility. In some cities, it is easier to get around by bike or on foot than in others, as traffic has a major impact on how far you can travel. However, not all mobility projects are designed with civilians in mind; some are designed for the military.

Scientific American: <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/global-study-reveals-best-cities-for-walking-and-cycling/#:~:text=Besides%20Copenhagen%2C%20other%20%E2%80%9Csuccess%20stories,transportation%20budget%20to%20nonmotorized%20travel."><strong>Global Study Reveals Best Cities for Walking and Cycling</strong></a>, November 14 — Scientific American: **Global Study Reveals Best Cities for Walking and Cycling**, November 14

Works in Progress: <a href="https://worksinprogress.co/issue/the-developing-world-needs-more-roads/"><strong>The developing world needs more roads</strong></a>, November 11 — Works in Progress: **The developing world needs more roads**, November 11

Le Monde: <a href="https://www.lemonde.fr/international/article/2025/11/16/le-defi-de-l-otan-face-a-la-russie-deployer-les-armees-europeennes-en-quelques-jours_6653614_3210.html"><strong>Déployer les armées européennes en quelques jours : le défi de l’OTAN face à la Russie</strong></a><strong> </strong>[<em>Deploying European armies in a matter of days: NATO's challenge in the face of Russia</em>], November 16 — Le Monde: **Déployer les armées européennes en quelques jours : le défi de l’OTAN face à la Russie** [*Deploying European armies in a matter of days: NATO's challenge in the face of Russia*], November 16

The 2025 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP 30) is still ongoing, as is engagement with climate issues. Of particular interest: how climate change is transforming the world, from opening new trade routes for China in the Arctic Ocean to creating dangerous glacial lakes in the Himalayas, and what climate investments are being made in green energy and on the African continent.

Axios: <a href="https://www.axios.com/2025/11/13/climate-change-progress-chart-co2-emissions"><strong>Our global progress on climate change, in one chart</strong></a>, November 13 — Axios: **Our global progress on climate change, in one chart**, November 13

El Orden Mondial: <a href="https://elordenmundial.com/mapas-y-graficos/china-ruta-artico/"><strong>China y su camino hacia la nueva ruta del Ártico</strong></a><strong> </strong>[<em>China and its path towards the new Arctic route</em>], November 14 — El Orden Mondial: **China y su camino hacia la nueva ruta del Ártico** [*China and its path towards the new Arctic route*], November 14

The New York Times: <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/11/14/climate/glacier-melt-himalayas.html?unlocked_article_code=1.1E8.ZWpD.Lq-9ACArsqjE&smid=url-share"><strong>A Dead Glacier Is a Loss. A Dying One Is a Threat</strong></a>, November 14 — The New York Times: **A Dead Glacier Is a Loss. A Dying One Is a Threat**, November 14

Perrin Remonté: "[...] Ma carte propose de prendre un peu d'avance et d'envisager le pire : nous sommes en 2100, et après avoir suivi une trajectoire socio-climatique mondiale pessimiste (scénario SSP 8.5) la région a pris entre 4°C et 6°C supplémentaires. Les climats ont changé, et avec eux, tout le reste. Où est le Monde "méditerranéen" actuel? [...]" [<em>My map suggests taking a step forward and considering the worst-case scenario: it is the year 2100, and after following a pessimistic global socio-climatic trajectory (SSP 8.5 scenario), the region has warmed by between 4°C and 6°C. Climates have changed, and with them, everything else. Where is the current “Mediterranean” world?</em>], November 17 (<a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/perrin-remont%C3%A9-b782a792/recent-activity/all/"><strong>LinkedIn</strong></a>) — Perrin Remonté: "[...] Ma carte propose de prendre un peu d'avance et d'envisager le pire : nous sommes en 2100, et après avoir suivi une trajectoire socio-climatique mondiale pessimiste (scénario SSP 8.5) la région a pris entre 4°C et 6°C supplémentaires. Les climats ont changé, et avec eux, tout le reste. Où est le Monde "méditerranéen" actuel? [...]" [My map suggests taking a step forward and considering the worst-case scenario: it is the year 2100, and after following a pessimistic global socio-climatic trajectory (SSP 8.5 scenario), the region has warmed by between 4°C and 6°C. Climates have changed, and with them, everything else. Where is the current “Mediterranean” world?], November 17 (**LinkedIn**)

Le Temps: <a href="https://www.letemps.ch/data/tableau-de-bord-du-climat-les-indicateurs-cles-en-temps-reel-en-suisse-et-dans-le-monde"><strong>Tableau de bord du climat: les indicateurs clés en temps réel en Suisse et dans le monde</strong></a> [<em>Chart title: Where was it warmer or colder last month?</em>], November 12 — Le Temps: **Tableau de bord du climat: les indicateurs clés en temps réel en Suisse et dans le monde** [*Chart title: Where was it warmer or colder last month?*], November 12

Folha de S.Paulo: <a href="https://www1.folha.uol.com.br/mercado/2025/11/60-da-energia-eletrica-do-mundo-vem-de-combustiveis-fosseis-veja-dados-de-90-paises.shtml"><strong>60% da energia elétrica do mundo vem de combustíveis fósseis; veja dados de 90 países</strong></a> [<em>Chart title: Evolution of the use of renewable sources for electricity generation</em>], November 11 — Folha de S.Paulo: **60% da energia elétrica do mundo vem de combustíveis fósseis; veja dados de 90 países** [*Chart title: Evolution of the use of renewable sources for electricity generation*], November 11

CarbonBrief: <a href="https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-seven-charts-showing-how-the-100bn-climate-finance-goal-was-met/?utm_content=buffer247b5&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer"><strong>Analysis: Seven charts showing how the $100bn climate-finance goal was met</strong></a>, November 14 — CarbonBrief: **Analysis: Seven charts showing how the $100bn climate-finance goal was met**, November 14

Other issues beyond climate investments have turned the spotlight on the African continent. These include its significant hydropower potential and different countries' opinions of each other.

Bloomberg: <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2025-africa-power-shortage-industrialization/?srnd=phx-graphics-v2"><strong>Africa’s Energy Shortage Is Stalling Its Industrial Revolution</strong></a>, November 14 — Bloomberg: **Africa’s Energy Shortage Is Stalling Its Industrial Revolution**, November 14

Pew Research Center: <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2025/11/13/south-africans-see-their-countrys-influence-weakening-ahead-of-g20/"><strong>South Africans See Their Country’s Influence Weakening Ahead of G20</strong></a>, November 13 — Pew Research Center: **South Africans See Their Country’s Influence Weakening Ahead of G20**, November 13

Animals have been mapped and tracked: ball pythons from the southern Sahara have the potential to treat cardiac problems, chips attached to monarch butterflies reveal their incredible journeys to winter colonies in Mexico, and the United Kingdom is leading the race for the most popular dog breeds.

The Washington Post: <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/interactive/2025/how-animals-plants-help-people-health/"><strong>50 species that save us</strong></a>, November 14 — The Washington Post: **50 species that save us**, November 14

The New York Times: <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/17/science/monarch-butterfly-migration-tracking-sensor.html"><strong>We Can Now Track Individual Monarch Butterflies. It’s a Revelation</strong></a>, November 17 — The New York Times: **We Can Now Track Individual Monarch Butterflies. It’s a Revelation**, November 17

maps.com: <a href="https://www.maps.com/dog-breeds-map-tracks-origin-of-101-most-popular-breeds/"><strong>A Paw-some Map of the 101 Most Popular Dog Breeds</strong></a>, November 17 — maps.com: **A Paw-some Map of the 101 Most Popular Dog Breeds**, November 17

Whether we're buying furniture or breakfast, we may notice that prices are rising. The reason for this: inflation. One possible reason behind that reason: tariffs.

Bloomberg: <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2025-holiday-shopping-tariffs-guide/"><strong>Your 2025 Guide to Holiday Prices: Where Tariffs Are Biting and Where They’re Not</strong></a>, November 14 — Bloomberg: **Your 2025 Guide to Holiday Prices: Where Tariffs Are Biting and Where They’re Not**, November 14

Der Spiegel: <a href="https://www.spiegel.de/wirtschaft/service/inflation-so-haben-sich-fruehstueck-und-lebensmittel-verteuert-ein-interaktiver-vergleich-a-309665d7-2606-4d33-b785-b7e4635d27da"><strong>So hat die Inflation Ihr Frühstück verteuert</strong></a><strong> </strong>[<em>How inflation has made your breakfast more expensive</em>], November 11 — Der Spiegel: **So hat die Inflation Ihr Frühstück verteuert** [*How inflation has made your breakfast more expensive*], November 11

Neue Zürcher Zeitung: <a href="https://www.nzz.ch/visuals/die-schweiz-musste-lange-warten-die-wichtigsten-grafiken-zum-zoll-deal-mit-trump-ld.1911726"><strong>Die Schweiz musste lange warten – die wichtigsten Grafiken zum Zoll-Deal mit Trump</strong></a> [<em>Switzerland had to wait a long time – the most important charts on the tariff deal with Trump</em>], November 14 — Neue Zürcher Zeitung: **Die Schweiz musste lange warten – die wichtigsten Grafiken zum Zoll-Deal mit Trump** [*Switzerland had to wait a long time – the most important charts on the tariff deal with Trump*], November 14

The older children get, the more time they spend on their mobile devices at school, using tools like ChatGPT, known for its prolific use of the em dash.

The New York Times: <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/12/upshot/teachers-survey-chromebooks-class.html?unlocked_article_code=1.0k8.aODH.pjVNjV03IKug&smid=url-share"><strong>How Much Screen Time Is Your Child Getting at School? We Asked 350 Teachers</strong></a>, November 13 — The New York Times: **How Much Screen Time Is Your Child Getting at School? We Asked 350 Teachers**, November 13

The Washington Post: <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/interactive/2025/how-detect-chatgpt-em-dash/"><strong>What are the clues that ChatGPT wrote something? We analyzed its style</strong></a>, November 13 — The Washington Post: **What are the clues that ChatGPT wrote something? We analyzed its style**, November 13

Shuffle, click, highlight, scroll — the following visualizations are full of entertaining interactions, even though their topics couldn't be more different: the ambiguous gender of Chinese names in the form of trees, trends in neuroscience publications as a heat map, and human remains in specimen jars.

Liuhuaying Yang: "So excited to announce Not My Gender (the new sister chapter of Not My Name) and share Names in Shadow (art project with Melinda Sipos) at the Info+ conference in Boston, back at Northeastern University where my dataviz career started!" November 18 (LinkedIn)

Moritz Stefaner: "Excited to share a new interactive dataviz, putting 50 years of neuroscience research on the map! We analyzed over 350’000 research publications and extracted salient keywords. Based on this, we were able to map the semantic concept space of neuroscience research: how are topic related to each other — and where is the current focus of attention? [...]" November 17 (LinkedIn, State of Neuroscience 2025)

The Philadelphia Inquirer: <a href="https://www.inquirer.com/arts/inq2/mutter-museum-human-remains-philadelphians-20251114.html?id=KQtRCpv5mGCnN&utm_source=social&utm_campaign=gift_link&utm_medium=referral"><strong>How two Philadelphians' remains ended up at the Mütter Museum</strong></a>, November 14 <span class="badge">extensive scrollytelling</span> — The Philadelphia Inquirer: **How two Philadelphians' remains ended up at the Mütter Museum**, November 14 extensive scrollytelling

Last but not least, our weekly highlights from the #30DayMapChallenge, in the following categories: 10-minute map, fire, cells, a new tool, and out of this world.

Kenneth Field: "Day 13: 10 minute map. A drive time map of my 10 minute commute to work made in less than 10 minutes," November 13 (Bluesky)

stevefaeembra: "Day 16 Cells, One day late! Surface water area distribution in Great Britain, done as water droplet plot. Used a coarse hex grid (25km) to sum the area of surface water in each cell [...] Scotland's rocks tend to more volcanic/less porous than England's," November 17 (<a href="https://mapstodon.space/@stevefaeembra/115565996658694737"><strong>Mapstodon</strong></a>) — stevefaeembra: "Day 16 Cells, One day late! Surface water area distribution in Great Britain, done as water droplet plot. Used a coarse hex grid (25km) to sum the area of surface water in each cell [...] Scotland's rocks tend to more volcanic/less porous than England's," November 17 (**Mapstodon**)

IGN: "Et si on jouait à reconstruire le monde ! Le tracé des courbes de la Corse été simplifié, pour recréer la carte en relief, bloc par bloc, avec le plus de minutie possible. Alors, plutôt bien fait ?" [Let's play at rebuilding the world! The contours of Corsica have been simplified to recreate the relief map, block by block, as accurately as possible. So, pretty good, right?], November 17 (Bluesky)

Lucas Destrem: "Jour 15 : Feu ! L'astroblème de Rochechouart-Chassenon. Souvenir de l'impact d'un astéroïde d'1,5 km de diamètre, tombé il y a plus de 200 millions d'années entre Charente et Limousin. 20 km/s : imaginez la puissance !" [Day 15: Fire! The Rochechouart-Chassenon astrobleme. Remains of the impact of an asteroid 1.5 km in diameter, which fell more than 200 million years ago between the Charente and Limousin regions. 20 km/s: imagine the power!], November 15 (Bluesky)

Rajo: "Day 18: Out of This World, Some planets in a galaxy far, far away," November 18 (Bluesky)

What else we found interesting

Rare Volume: "Data can be both functional and expressive. This visual system was created for Symphonologie, an AI-generated orchestral performance at The Louvre. Live audio feeds shaping visual expression in real time [...]," November 18 (<a href="https://www.linkedin.com/company/rare-volume/posts/"><strong>LinkedIn</strong></a>) — Rare Volume: "Data can be both functional and expressive. This visual system was created for Symphonologie, an AI-generated orchestral performance at The Louvre. Live audio feeds shaping visual expression in real time [...]," November 18 (**LinkedIn**)

Tom Vaillant: "Just released Infoviz.design! Finding inspiration for visual journalism usually means digging through archives or searching across many different sources. This tool uses our old database of visual stories with an LLM to let you semantically search for inspiration using the editorial themes [...]," November 18 (<a href="https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7396202416465084416/"><strong>LinkedIn</strong></a>, <a href="https://www.infoviz.design/"><strong>Infoviz.design</strong></a>) — Tom Vaillant: "Just released Infoviz.design! Finding inspiration for visual journalism usually means digging through archives or searching across many different sources. This tool uses our old database of visual stories with an LLM to let you semantically search for inspiration using the editorial themes [...]," November 18 (**LinkedIn**, **Infoviz.design**)

mathgrrl: "Still time to join the Granny Life community math/art project at www.grannylifecrochet.com!," November 12 (Bluesky, Granny Life)

Applications are open for…

A cartographic design intern at Esri Creative Lab
A data projects editor at The Guardian
A graphics reporter (deleted data project) at The Guardian
Multiple roles on the board of the Data Visualization Society

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!

Data Vis Dispatch, November 18: Lunar missions, butterflies, and the #30DayMapChallenge

What else we found interesting

Newsletter

Related Posts

All Blog Categories

What else we found interesting

Newsletter

Related Posts

Data Vis Dispatch, November 11: Mayoral election in New York City, deforestation, and chess

Data Vis Dispatch, November 4: #30DayMapChallenge, hurricane Melissa, and speeches

Data Vis Dispatch, October 28: Cats, deals, and uncertainty

All Blog Categories