Comparative Views
Artistic data visualization is not new. The scholar Michael Friendly has even called 1850–1900 the “golden age of statistical graphics.” Here are six examples of one of my favorite nineteenth-century cartographic genres: comparative views. Mapmakers aggregated similar topographic features (e.g., mountains, islands, lakes, rivers, waterfalls) on one page, and arranged them by height, length, or area, as well as by continent or hemisphere.
(Images courtesy of David Rumsey’s amazing online collection.)