12 Must-Use Datasets for Data Visualization in 2024
Not only is data visualization a powerful tool that allows data scientists and analysts to communicate complex insights and findings in an easily digestible format, but it’s also one of the first steps for aspiring data scientists/analysts who want to enter the field and showcase newly learned skills. But there’s another important thing to consider — dataset choice. Choosing the right datasets for data visualization is critical to the success of any data visualization project — it can mean the difference between delivering a compelling narrative or falling flat.
But that is why we’re here at ODSC! Let’s take a look at a list of the best datasets for data visualization across various domains, perfect for enhancing your data visualization projects and bringing your data stories to life, or even just helping you spice up that portfolio.
Government and Open Data Sources
U.S. Government Open Data (data.gov)
As one of the most comprehensive repositories of government data, data.gov offers datasets across multiple sectors, including agriculture, climate, education, and health. This platform is particularly useful for policy analysis, economic visualizations, and public sector projects, enabling users to explore trends and insights within the U.S. governmental landscape. These datasets for data visualization are quite diverse and offer both new and advanced-level data scientists plenty of choice in terms of theme.
For those interested in global development, the World Bank Open Data platform provides extensive datasets on topics like health, education, and economic indicators. It’s a go-to source for visualizing global trends and financial data, making it ideal for projects focused on international development, economic comparisons, and poverty analysis.
Social Media and Web Data
Google Trends offers insights into what people are searching for over time, making it an excellent tool for time series visualizations, popularity analysis, and trend forecasting. By leveraging this data, you can create visualizations that capture the pulse of public interest on various topics, from politics to entertainment.
Twitter API / Twitter Data via Kaggle
Twitter’s vast repository of real-time and historical data is a goldmine for sentiment analysis, social listening, and network visualizations. Whether you’re examining public opinion on a recent event or analyzing engagement around a particular hashtag, Twitter data can provide the social context and depth your visualizations need.
Scientific and Environmental Datasets
For environmental and geospatial visualizations, NASA Earth Observations provides satellite imagery and data on various Earth-related variables, such as temperature, vegetation, and cloud cover. These datasets are invaluable for projects focused on environmental changes, climate analysis, and natural disaster visualizations.
NOAA’s Climate Data Online offers a treasure trove of historical weather, climate, and environmental data. This resource is perfect for visualizing climate change trends, analyzing historical weather patterns, and predicting future climate scenarios, making it a staple for any data scientist working in the environmental space.
Health and Demographic Data
The CDC’s extensive collection of public health data includes information on diseases, conditions, and lifestyle statistics. It’s ideal for creating health-related visualizations, demographic studies, and public health awareness projects. These datasets for data visualization can help highlight critical public health trends and disparities across different communities.
United Nations Population Data
The UN’s demographic and social datasets provide insights into population trends, migration patterns, and social changes worldwide. These datasets are essential for visualizing global demographic shifts, understanding migration flows, and analyzing social trends, offering a macro-level view of the world’s population dynamics.
Finance and Economic Datasets
Yahoo Finance provides detailed financial data on stocks, currencies, and market trends. It’s perfect for financial visualizations, market analysis, and economic forecasting. Whether you’re tracking stock performance or analyzing market movements, this API offers the data needed to create insightful financial visualizations.
Quandl is a comprehensive resource for financial, economic, and alternative datasets. It supports in-depth economic analysis, forecasting models, and financial visualization projects, making it an essential tool for data professionals looking to explore financial markets and economic indicators.
Niche and Fun Datasets
For those interested in the entertainment industry, the IMDB movie dataset provides data on movies, ratings, actors, and more. If you’re a movie/TV buff, there is a great deal that you can do with this dataset. For one, it is excellent for visualizing trends in movie popularity, analyzing ratings, and exploring patterns within the film industry. Some of those patterns and also be timed to time/eras such as westerns in the 60s/70s, noir films of the 40s, and slasher flicks of the 70s/80s.
Another data set from Kaggle, this one is great for board game enthusiasts. Here, even if you’re not a big board game player, you get a wide range of data that covers game ratings, genres, and gameplay statistics. With that said, if you play your cards right, you can use these datasets to create great visualizations related to trends in game popularity, compare ratings, and analyze the evolution of board games over time.
Conclusion on Datasets for Data Visualization
Selecting the right datasets for data visualization is crucial for creating impactful data visualizations that tell compelling stories. The datasets listed above offer a wide range of options for various types of projects, from policy analysis to niche hobbies like board games. Experiment with these sources, explore the data, and bring your visualizations to life.
Now if you want to take your data visualization skills to the next level, then you must check out ODSC West 2024. At ODSC West, you’ll not only get the networking and training you need to upskill to the next level, but you’ll leave with actionable abilities that can upgrade any data visualization projects in the future.
So get your pass today before they run out!
Originally posted on OpenDataScience.com
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