Visualizing Historical Agricultural Data: The Current State of the Art 

Irwin Anolik (USDA – National Agricultural Statistics Service) 

Abstract 

This paper reports on methods implemented at the National Agricultural Statistics 

Service (NASS) which enhance data users’ ability to view, analyze and interact with 

NASS historical data using any web browser or mobile device. 

We discuss concepts and technologies implemented to enhance the ability of NASS's 

data customers to find historical data of interest, make comparisons, and see important 

trends across variables that are not possible with static tables or charts. 

The visualization methods presented include 1) animated maps which depict changes 

over time, 2) sparklines, invented by Edward Tufte and described as “word-sized 

graphics”, employed in small multiples which allow the display of large amounts of 

historical data on a single web page or mobile device screen, and 3) interactive charts 

to enable our data users to drill down and focus on more detailed views of these data 

displays. Each of these methods facilitates the display of large volumes of data and 

allows data users to extract information from our statistics that is difficult or impossible 

to obtain from traditional static charts or tabular displays of data. 

Keywords: (dissemination, visualization, animation, sparklines, small multiples) 

Introduction 

Well-designed data graphics and maps can help someone understand the underlying

data much better than a simple table of numbers. Until recently, historical data offerings 

on the NASS website were generally limited to static charts and maps, and text and

tables via text files, spreadsheets and PDF documents. 

Modern computers and the internet have made it much easier to make graphics out of

tabular data and give these graphics the qualities of animation and interactivity.

However, a computer alone doesn’t make a good graphic. In this paper, we explore

some principles of good data graphics, which we apply to NASS historical data series

on the NASS website. We also share some novel techniques that are available to create

effective ways of visualizing this data. 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Given the rich and comprehensive nature of NASS historical data, it is important to

effectively and efficiently present this information. Charts can quickly become cluttered

with too much data, but good graphical design can reveal new insights from these data. 

In his seminal book entitled The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, Edward 

Tufte writes that “Graphical elegance is often found in simplicity of design and

complexity of data.” He then discusses ways to improve displays of statistical

information starting with the proper choice of a format and design. He recommends to 1)

use words, numbers, and drawings together, 2) reflect a balance, a proportion, a sense

of relevant scale, 3) often have a narrative quality, a story to tell about the data, 4) 

create charts in a professional manner, with the technical details of production done with

care, and 5) avoid using “chartjunk” or those visual elements in charts and graphs that

are not necessary to comprehend the information represented on the graph, or that

distract the viewer from this information. 

Animations 

Animating a map or a graphic gives data customers a very effective way to visualize

change over time. It can also provide the ability to control the playback of an animation

with a pause-play button and scroll bar. 

The use of the Internet has allowed animated maps to become interactive. The user can

witness representations of changes over time, while manipulating the direction of view,

and the pace or the parameters of the map displayed (MacEachren 1998). 

This paper discusses 2 sets of map animations available on the NASS website to help

data users visualize changes over time: Crop Progress and Condition Animations, and

Crop Acreage Animations (incorporating statistical graphics) 

Crop Progress and Condition Animations 

Crop Progress Percents relate to acres and indicate the progress of field activities or

crop development. Generally, an acre should be considered at or beyond a certain

stage of development when 50 percent or more of the plants in that acre are at or

beyond that stage. 

Crop condition generally relates to yield prospects based on the condition at a given

time, and the maps display percent good + excellent where good and excellent are

defined as: 

• Good - Yield prospects are normal. Moisture levels are adequate and disease,

insect damage, and weed pressures are minor. Pastures are providing adequate

feed supplies for the current time of year. 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

• Excellent - Yield prospects are above normal. Crops are experiencing little or no

stress. Disease, insect damage, and weed pressures are insignificant. Pastures

are supplying feed in excess of what is normally expected at the current time of 

year. 

The crop progress and condition data is published weekly throughout the growing

season as a series of dozens of tables for each crop progress and condition

combination. Here is a recent example of one of those tables 

As stated on the NASS Research and Science website, “Animated U.S. choropleth

maps of crop progress and condition state-level estimates greatly enhance current

NASS offerings regarding crop progress and condition by more effectively showing the

crop story to data users. Condition maps' sequential hues portray percent "good +

excellent" for the crop by state, with weekly animated change. Their legend includes 

national condition. Progress maps' monochromatic shades portray percent progress for

the crop data item by state, and their legend also includes the national 5-year average

progress.” 

Much effort went into selecting appropriate color schemes for the generated maps,

using the “colorbrewer” schemes (developed by Cynthia Brewer at Penn State) as a

guide. Colorbrewer is an online tool designed and developed to help select high quality 

effective color schemes for maps and other graphics. 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here is a quickstart guide that shows what the screens look like and how to access the

animations: 

Crop Acreage Animations 

Maps can be enhanced by integrating charts and graphs. This was done commonly in

the past when people had to draw maps and charts by hand. Many examples of this 

can be found at the David Rumsey Map Collection website:

(http://www.davidrumsey.com) 

Until recently, the NASS web site presented data such as crop acreage as part of a

comprehensive PDF or text file or as a static graph showing the last 20 years of data.

Examples of these are shown here: 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The crop acreage animations for major crops that now appear on the NASS website

integrate time series charts that animate along with the map. As the animation

progresses, the relevant values for production, acreage and yield appear on the plots.

The harvested acreage for each state for a given crop, as represented by the bars over

each state, changes year by year thus telling a more comprehensive long term story for

the given crop. 

One can then clearly see the trends for the US totals of production, acreage, and yield

over time as well as how harvested acres changes geographically (by state) over the

same time period. 

The crop progress and condition maps mentioned previously, as well as the crop

acreage maps and charts, were created using SAS. The animations were created using

Apple’s QuickTime player technology. 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sparklines and interactive charts 

A sparkline, as defined by Tufte, is “a small intense, simple, word-sized graphic with

typographic resolution. 

Sparklines ... can be everywhere a word or number can be: embedded in a sentence,

table, headline, map, spreadsheet, graphic.” 

On the NASS website, sparklines allow us to show long-term trends for multiple crops

and multiple variables for each crop. Most of the sparklines represents 145 data points

(one for each year), allowing us to visualize several thousand data points on one page

in a way that is easy to understand and derive meaning from. A sparkline is a very 

small line chart, typically drawn without axes or coordinates. On the NASS web site,

they represent the general shape of the variation over time for acreage production yield

and price for major field crops, in a simple and highly condensed way. Note how these 

sparklines are small enough to be embedded in a table, and several sparklines are

grouped together as elements of a small multiple. A small multiple is a series or grid of

small similar graphics or charts, allowing them to be easily compared. 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sparklines have obvious applications for economic data, by tracking changes over time,

showing overall trend as well as local detail. Note that sparklines are depicted on the

NASS website as part of a data table, along with relevant color coded minimum,

maximum, and most recent values and corresponding dots on each sparkline. 

Allow the ability to interact with the data graphic

Clicking on one of the sparklines for a given crop enables you to zoom in on variables of

interest for that crop, and also enable interaction with the trend lines in a way that will

display individual data values and zoom in on a desired period of time: 

These tools are very similar to what is available on the most famous financial websites,

such as those provided by Google and Yahoo. 

Note that small multiples of maps are used in the appropriate position to provide spatial

context alongside the series of sparklines. 

Unlike Google and Yahoo, which use Flash technology to provide interactivity for the

above mentioned websites, the tools developed by NASS generate sparklines using the

jQuery JavaScript library, and the accompanying interactive charts were created using

the Highcharts charting library. Importantly, this enables data customers to use their 

mobile devices (iOS and Android ) to access sparklines and interactive charts on the

NASS website. 

Conclusion 

The charts and maps developed for the NASS website and presented in this paper were

produced using a variety of products and programming languages. These programs and

products are all useful technologies, but they are most useful when information

designers think critically about how best to display the data of interest. 

When looking at NASS’s historical data, researching and applying best principles and

appropriate technologies to create well-designed graphics can help data-users find the

information they want, and learn more about the big picture, and the story behind the

data. 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

References 

ColorBrewer Color Advice for Maps (http://colorbrewer2.org) 

David Rumsey Map Collection website (http://www.davidrumsey.com) 

MacEachren, Alan M. (1998). Cartography, GIS and the World Wide Web. Progress in

Human Geography 22(4): 575–585. 

NASS Research, Science, and Technology website

(http://www.nass.usda.gov/Research_and_Science/) 

Tufte, E. (1990). Envisioning Information. Cheshire, CT: Graphics Press. 

Tufte, E. (2001). The Visual Display of Quantitative Information. Cheshire, CT: Graphics

Press. 

Tufte, E. (2006). Beautiful Evidence. Cheshire, CT: Graphics Press.