The Our World in Data-Grapher

Note: This document is not up-to-date and documents only some of the capabilities of the Grapher.

The Our World in Data Grapher is the open-source tool to store, explore, and visualize data. It is developed by the Our World in Data team.

As every other tool developed and used at Our World in Data, the Grapher is also open source and free to use on any other web publication. You can find all the code in the Github repository, published under the MIT license.

Essentially these are two tools in one:

  1. A first tool allows the author to upload panel data into one central database and in the process of uploading the data, the author can store all the relevant information about the data source so that the authors get credited and the definitions, units, and other relevant information get stored with the data.
  2. A second tool then allows to pull any of the data from this database and visualize it in an interactive chart or explorer in many different ways.

We have so far developed the capabilities to visualize data in the following ways:

  • scatter plot,
  • line chart,
  • slope chart,
  • stacked area chart,
  • stacked bar chart,
  • bar chart (horizontal and vertical; single- and multi-bar charts)
  • choropleth maps (world maps and maps of all countries and continents)
  • marimekko charts.

With this tool it is possible for the reader to pull the information for additional countries from the database and add them to the visualization. The reader can then build her own charts or maps and save it as a .svg vector image or as a .png image. These visualizations work for all countries, many different data types and are highly customizable.

Today it is developed by our engineering and product & design teams. The first versions of the Our World in Data Grapher was developed by the web developers Zdenek Hynek, Jaiden Mispy, and Daniel Gavrilov.

Line chart

An example of what a line chart visualization done with the Our World in Data Grapher looks like.

Stacked area chart

Choropleth World Maps

World maps use the Robinson projection.

Marimekko Chart

A slope chart

Scatter plot – with time axis

Connected scatter plot – with time axis

Stacked Bar Chart