#TweakThursday 14: Dotting The Map

This Monday's Viz of the Day (8/22/2016) is about malaria in Africa. This topic is dear to me in two ways:

- Last year in 2015, the Nobel Prize in Medicine was given to Ms.Youyou Tu of China for discovering artemisinin and dihydroartemisinin, used to treat malaria, which saved millions of lives. She got her inspirations from Chinese medicine. Being a native of China, I am very proud of her. Here is her Wikipedia article.

- Recently Tableau Foundation launched a project for helping Africa combatting malaria. I have joined the project and helped mapping some of the African villages. Also, I introduced a few kids to volunteer for the project.

The viz in question is simple and elegant. It has got all of the 47 countries in Africa on the map. But if anyone can find them all on the map, I would be very surprised. The problem, as Zen Master Andy Kriebel once pointed out, is that the countries are of irregular shapes and sizes on the map. The smaller countries are at a disadvantage because users are less likely to see them or to find them at all.

The tweak here is to add a dot to each country, big or small. So tiny countries like Comoros, Swaziland, Gambia and Cabo Verde are surfaced. People can easily point and click them to view stats. The original viz's layout and tone remain unchanged.

The dots are added through dual axis. Click image to go to the interactive version. The data is updated to 2000-2018 based on WHO report.

BTW, this viz is part of the #MakeoverMonday project.