Growth Around The Globe

Temporal Analysis of Growth

The United States sees steady growth in numbers starting in 2016. The United States also sees the most apparent seasonal spike in the months April and May. Following that annual spike is a sizable drop in activity. Canada also follows a similar pattern of summer time spikes. Only two countries have surpassed the United States in the number of observations in a single day: New Zealand and South Africa. New Zealand had an early spike of observations on October 13th of 2014 with 27,000 observations. South Africa had a spike in observations from April 12th to April 22nd of 2018. The causes behind these spikes in numbers is unknown. Russia has been steadily obtaining increased popularity, reaching its highest numbers in early 2020.

Temporal Analysis Per Capita

The values shown in this visualization represent the number of observations divided by the population of the country, multiplied by one million. This demonstrates how many observations are made per one million people each day.

New Zealand saw the earliest growth, hitting more than 75 observations per one million people before 2015. They also saw a second wave of growth in 2018 and have been consistently seeing over 300 observations per one million people. These numbers exceed every other countries' maximum by almost twofold. While the United States typically sees the highest number of observations, when normalized per capita, it is apparent that it is partly because of its large population. Canada and Australia have shown promising growth in activity over the past two years, both hitting around 150 observation per one million people. Canada's seasonal trend follows closely to the United States, but looks to be more of a gradual build up and decline compared to the United States. Also, while most countries have an extremely short period of increased observations, New Zealand shows the highest numbers most frequently.

Rate of Growth

Observations were first aggregated by month in order to calculate the Rate of Growth. The past months' observations were then subtracted by the present months' observations. The result of that subtraction was then divided by the past months' observations to obtain the Rate of Growth.

Most of the increased rates before 2018 are due to countries having extremely low numbers of observations. However, Great Britain has a consistent increased Rate of Growth of approximately 3 every April. In early 2018, South Africa's Rate of Growth of nearly 25 was largely due to the week of unexplained increased activity, as seen in the first visualization. While most countries have a spike in the month of April, New Zealand and Australia had a similar spike in later months of 2019. The spike in those two countries is likely due to their location in the southern hemisphere, with their warmer months being opposite to those in the northern hemisphere.