As Hurricane Irma makes its way through the Caribbean, and heads towards the United States, the big question on everyone's mind ... is the hurricane going to hit my city? Or, as some people like to say, "should I buy milk & bread?" Let's analyze & map some data to
I suppose we've all been watching Hurricane Irma rip through the Caribbean like a giant buzzsaw blade, with wind speeds over 180mph. This is one of those rare Category 5 storms. But just how rare are Category 5 hurricanes? According to the Wikipedia page, hurricanes with wind speeds >=157mph are
International Talk Like a Pirate Day is Sept 19 ... which always gets me thinking and wondering about modern-day pirates. Most movies usually focus on pirates from the Golden Age of piracy (a couple hundred years ago), when pirates typically stole ships and booty (treasure). But modern day pirates usually board
The U.S. was really fortunate in having the recent total solar eclipse pass through so many of its states! This gave lots of people an opportunity to see it, with just a short (or moderate) drive. I think a little kid spoke for all of us when they said "Let's
With North Korea's growing missile capabilities in the news lately, I thought it would be interesting to create a map showing how far (or close) they are from other parts of the world. I first did a few searches on the Web, to see what maps are already out there.
With all the recent talk about some people wanting to move from the US to Canada, I got to wondering how cold, and how far north Canada is. And after a few Google searches, I was surprised to learn that 27 US states are actually farther north than the southernmost point
There will be a total solar eclipse on August 21, 2017, and the umbra (total shadow) will pass right across the United States! As a data guy, a map guy, and an astronomy fan, this is an opportunity I just couldn't pass up! Follow along as I apply my computer skills
When it comes to economic activity, a handful of the largest metropolitan areas in the US account for lion's share. In 2013, the top 23 Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs) accounted for 50% of the total US Gross Domestic Product (GDP). I recently came across a map created by Alexandr Trubetskoy
Here in the US, we typically use top level domains such as .com, .gov, and .org. I guess we were one of the first countries to start using web domains in a big way, and therefore we kind of got squatter's rights. As other countries started using the web, they
North Carolina is a very diverse state - especially when it comes to outdoor recreation opportunities. This weekend you could go hiking or kayaking in the mountains, watch a hot air balloon festival near Raleigh, and go wind surfing or fishing at the coast. And if you've got your SCUBA
These days, more and more people move to where the work is. And for many people in Europe, that 'where' is Germany. I recently saw a map of Germany, that showed which country had the most foreigners living in each area. It was an interesting map, but I thought I might
In recent years, solar panels have become much more economical, and therefore more popular. But because of the curvature of the Earth, the angle at which you need to install the panels varies, depending on where you live. In this example, I demonstrate how to visualize this kind of data
I guess a coding dinosaur is someone who uses an old/legacy computer language, or at least a language that isn't en vogue these days. Coding dinosaurs are still around (and probably will be for a while), whereas the real dinosaurs that lived millions of years ago are extinct. What caused
Water is in the news more & more lately - people seem to either have too much, or too little, at any given time. Therefore being able to plot rivers and lakes on a map could be a very useful skill to add to your graphical bag of tricks. A few
While attending SAS Global Forum, a user asked me about creating a map with a zoomed inset map. This is a topic many users might be interested in, so I decided to create an example and share it. But first, I had to decide which map to use. I thought
In the aftermath of a natural disaster, most people want to help by donating supplies, money, etc. And then it becomes a matter of logistics - getting all those donations to the people who need them. We recently had several days of rain and flooding in North Carolina, and I
You've got a database containing the addresses of all your customers ... but how can you plot them on a map or analyze them spatially? First, you'll need to convert the address into a numeric coordinate (latitude & longitude). SAS can do that ... with Proc Geocode! But before we
A new prospective customer enters their personal information on your web page, and they want to have a sales rep contact them ... but you need to know which sales region they're in, so you can assign them to a sales team. Now, multiply that by thousands of prospective customers!
SAS provides a map for each country, but there are likely other maps you want to use that SAS does not provide. If you have other maps in the Esri shapefile format, you're in luck - you can import those maps and use them! In this blog post I share
In recent versions of SAS/Graph, we have been shipping new/updated maps of each country, with 2 levels of detail (such as state & county, or province & division). But what if you only want a map showing the higher level of detail? In this blog post I share my third
Have you ever seen a map that just didn't look right to you? Perhaps the map area seemed squished or stretched? Perhaps this was because they used a different map projection than you were accustomed to. Or maybe the map coordinates weren't projected at all. In this blog post I
With the advent of things like car GPS & Google Maps, and a steady supply of nice maps from certain news sources (such as the New York Times), people have finally embraced the idea that mapping data can be very useful. And if you are into data visualization, you have
Earth is an explosive world! Data from the Smithsonian Institution's Global Volcanism Program (GVP) documents Earth's volcanoes and their eruptive history over the past 10,000 years. The GVP database includes the names, locations, types, and features of more than 1,500 volcanoes. Let's look closer into volcanic eruptions across the globe
How many meteorites have hit the earth in the last 4,000 years? Where have they landed? And which ones were the biggest? Can we show all of this information - and more in an intuitive data visualization? It turns out NASA provides public data about recorded meteorite impacts on earth all the
If you're a fan of SAS' ODS Graphics, you probably know that it does pretty much everything except geographical maps. But it's flexible enough that you can "fake it 'till you make it"! This example describes how to fake a geographical (choropleth) heat map using Proc SGplot polygons. In my
If you give an artist some tools, they can create a pretty picture. Sure, they might have a preferred tool - but they can probably do a pretty decent job no matter what you give them (paint, colored pencils, watercolor, charcoal, etc). And creating pretty graphs in SAS is no
Have you been using the SAS/Graph Gmap procedure to plot your data on maps for years, but never knew you could add roads to your maps?!? Follow along in this blog post, and I'll teach you how... But before we get started, here's a picture of a nice aerial view
Doing business in a global economy, have you ever found yourself wanting to show Chinese (or Korean, or Japanese) labels on a map? If so, then this blog is for you! Before we get started, here is a photo of some Chinese characters to get you into the mood. This
I usually create very technical maps, to display data spatially - and they usually have a certain look. They're clear, crisp, and to the point. I typically only use color to represent the data, and I choose a font that is simple and easy to read (such as arial). But
Parents are always proud of their kids, and think their kids are better than all the other kids. I guess it might be a little bit that way with mapping software ... but I really do think I've got a pretty compelling example to show that SAS maps are better
