Data Visualization: Alcohol Consumption per Capita

As part of my Data Visualization class, I was to select some statistical data and visualize it in a unique way. I chose alcohol consumption per capita in Europe.

I started by going to get data from the World Bank. I selected all the countries in Europe and downloaded an Excel file from which I selected all the values for 2016.

Ultimately I sorted through the data and made five data stacks. The visualization I chose was inspired by GitHub's heatmap that's used to record commits.

What resulted was a unique perspective on a piece of data. All the countries have been reduced to squares on a grid, placed as closest to their actual position geographically. It's similar to modern election maps where all the divisions are normalized and not out of proportion - something that can distort data perception.

I also made a version in a champagne colour scheme, as shown below. It includes a few more annotations to help the reader understand the data.