Freebase and Data Visualization

This is a nice post [via Cool Inforgraphics] which uses Freebase as a data source to create an animation charting the growth of Wal-Mart over time. Toby says:

Freebase has a topic for every zip code, along with it’s longitude and latitude. Here’s one example. One query pulls out all the ZIP codes along with their longitudes and latitudes. You can turn longitudes and latitudes into graphical coordinates with some simple transformations (which will vary based on the region you’re plotting and how big your image is) — here are the ones I used:

x=(longitude+127)*16
y=(50-latitude)*20

If you plot all the ZIP codes using a library like PIL, you get a nice map with dots that roughly match population density, which has the advantage of looking a little bit like a night-time satellite photo of the United States.

Freebase also contains a list of Wal-mart locations, along with their addresses and the year that they opened. Here’s an example. One query pulls all of these out of Freebase.