Our World In Data choropleth

A post on how recreate the Our World In Data characteristic choropleth in R.

Purpose

I really look up to Max Roser and the team at Our World in Data. They have some of the best short form articles condensing a wealth of academic literature to, in their words, “make progress against the world’s largest problems”.

The mission is summed up well in a lecture given at Stellenbosch University by Max Roser last year, included below.

In this tutorial I want to walk through recreating one of their classic chart types in R, the world map choropleth with an overlayed line graph for each coutnry. A typical example shown below.

Finished product

Here is the finished product that we will create in the tutorial