This post was inspired by Moritz Stefaner’s remix of Hans Rosling’s fertility and life expectancy bubble graph from Gapminder.

Moritz’s use of trails is effective in capturing much of the dynamism of the original Gapminder tool. But, viewing it online made me want to reach in and adjust the parameters. So, I decided to play around with the d3 based Wealth & Health of Nations remix made by Mike Bostock.

As with the remix by Moritz Stefaner, each circle represents a year. The smallest circle in each series is furthest back in time. Adjusting the slider changes the timeframe shown. Hover over the circles to see the year.

The illustration shows five countries (United States, Germany, Italy, Japan and China). These were chosen because they have interesting war, famine and/or disease related changes in life expectancy.

The initial 1935-1965 timeframe covers WWII and the great famine in China. By moving the sliders to include the mid nineteen-teens additional life expectancy dips in Europe and the U.S. can be seen.

This visualization does not add any functionality that isn’t already available at the Gapminder site, but it is fun to see the interactivity in the browser using only SVG and javascript.