101 of the Most Fantastic Interactive Infographics You’ll Love

by Meghin Hewitt June 24, 2016

June 24, 2016

If you have a ton of data and you want to tell a good story, interactive infographics are a fantastic tool. They entice your audience to explore the content, whether it’s a data set or a guided storytelling experience, and they can provide far more information than a static infographic.

So, what makes a good interactive infographic? Whether it’s super simple or incredibly complex, it comes down to good design, engaging interactivity, and an interesting subject. The options are pretty much endless. If you’re thinking about experimenting with interactive infographics or looking for some serious inspiration for your next project, we’ve rounded up 101 of our favorites, covering everything from the cosmic web to cocktails. Scroll through the whole list (they’re listed, not ranked), and click on the images to visit the interactive infographic.

101 Awesome Interactive Infographics

1. “How Search Works: From Algorithms to Answers”

With the ease of Internet search, it’s easy to forget how much work goes into generating each search result. This interactive infographic, created by Google, helps you fully understand the process.

2. “The New New York Skyline”
New York has one of the most recognizable skylines in the U.S., but it is changing, as this interactive by National Geographic shows. Scroll through the city and click on landmarks for more information.

3. “The Evolution of the Web”

This interactive infographic by Google Chrome details the growth of the web. You can explore the infographic from two perspectives: the growth of the Internet as a whole or by looking at individual browsers and technologies.

4. “World’s Biggest Data Breaches”

Everyone is at risk of data theft, but large entities are particularly targeted. This interactive infographic created by David McCandless of Information is Beautiful lets you see who’s been hacked and to what extent.

5. “Vitamin Atlas: An Interactive Guide to Nutrition and the Human Body”

This interactive by Good Magazine guides you through the body like Ms. Frizzle guides her students on The Magic School Bus, giving you a full biology lesson.

6. “Hungry Tech Giants”

Tech giants don’t climb down from beanstalks; they grow through acquisitions. This interactive by Simply Business allows you to see the conquests of five major companies from 1999 to 2014.

7. “Diversity in Tech: Employee Breakdown of Key Technology Companies”

This interactive infographic by David McCandless looks at the demographics of the largest tech companies. The data is not perfect, as not all companies declare their figures. But you can search by gender, ethnicity, or company.

8. “Will a Robot Take your Job?”

BBC created an awesomely terrifying interactive infographic that shows the likelihood of robots making your job obsolete. Either type in your profession or choose from a comprehensive list to see the percentage.

9. “A Visual Introduction to Machine Learning”

Machine learning is the field of study that gives computers the ability to learn without being explicitly programmed. It is as abstract as it sounds, but if you want to learn more the best way to do it is with this interactive infographic created by Stephanie Yee and Tony Chu.

10. “45 Words You Should Know About HIV/AIDS”

This interactive created by Healthline fights misinformation surrounding HIV and AIDS. Terms are color-coded, and you can click to learn more.

11. “The Visual Web”

This interactive infographic by Ceros visualizes a study conducted by GumGum and Brand Innovators about the power of visual content.

12. “Mapping the Dead: Gun Deaths Since Sandy Hook”

This Huffington Post interactive map of gun deaths in the U.S. allows you to see how prevalent gun violence is across the country and in your own state.

13. “International Women’s Day: Political Rights Around the World Mapped”

The Guardian’s interactive map on women’s rights allows you to scan information by region, time period, or by right (voting, right to run, elected). More info is found by clicking on a country.

14. “The Data That Lies Beneath”

Column Five partnered with Lucidworks to create this interactive infographic, which examines true cost of dark data and how brands can tap into the huge potential dark data provides.

15. “NFL Salaries by Team and Position”

The Guardian’s interactive team created this interactive infographic to showcase the salaries of NFL players, based on their team and position. You can compare teams or explore a single team’s data.

16. “Space Craft For All”

This interactive by Google combines illustration and video to provide an in-depth look at the history of ISEE-3, a spacecraft meant to monitor information from the sun. The interactive allows you to watch the journey, see a live view, and inspect the data more closely.

17. “Gay Rights in the US, State by State”

This interactive by The Guardian showcases the evolution of gay rights in America. It’s broken down by state and region, allowing an in-depth look at all laws regarding marriage, hospital visits, adoption, employment, housing, hate crimes, and schools.

18. “Geography of Hate: Geotagged Hateful Tweets in the United States”

Created by a professor and students at Humboldt State, this piece shows an interactive map of all tweets featuring hate speech in America. The data is from all geotagged tweets between June 2012 to April 2013.

19. “What’s Your Pay Gap?”

This visualization by the Wall Street Journal highlights the issue of pay discrepancy. The interactive lets you plug in your profession and calculate how much you make compared to the opposite gender. (Interestingly, it shows that women getting paid less. There are professions where men are making less than their female counterparts—cough cough: dieticians.)

20. “Parable of the Polygons: A Playable Post on the Shape of Society”

This piece by Vi Hart and Nicky Case illustrates the complications of small individual biases and their impact on society as a whole. You’re playing a game with “unhappy polygons” and learning about society all at once.

21. “The Refugee Project”

The refugee crisis is one that affects people all over the world, but the true issue can be difficult to understand without a visualization like this from Hyperakt and Ekene Ijeoma, which shows refugee migration from 1975-2014.

22. “Years You Have Left to Live, Probably”

Wouldn’t it be nice to know exactly when you are going to die? Isn’t that the reason so many people visit psychics? This visualization from Nathan Yau allows you to input your gender and age, then it calculates the probability of how long you will live.

23. “How You Will Die”

Another cheery infographic by Nathan Yau answers the second part of the death question— not just when you’ll die but how. Input a bit of information about yourself, such as gender, ethnicity, and age, then see a list of possibilities for your demise.

24. “Wind Map”

Made by Fernanda Viégas and Martin Wattenberg, this gorgeous visualization shows real-time wind patterns from the National Digital Forecast Database. Zoom closer to see weather conditions in your area.

25. “Scaled in Miles”

Miles Davis had an impressive career, and this impressive visualization by Fathom captures it. Explore the data from more than 400 recording sessions.

26. “The Fastest Growing Companies in America”

This interactive infographic is the love child of Inc. and Column Five. Press play to watch the growth of the top 500 companies or apply a filter and scan data by industry, state, or time period.

27. “Workers’ Comp Benefits: How Much is a Limb Worth?”

Workers’ comp is a pretty awful, lengthy process for those unfortunate enough to experience it. But did you know there’s actually a price tag on each of your limbs, depending on your state of residence? This interactive infographic by ProPublica lets you compare compensation by limb, state, and national average.

28. “Global Child Mortality”

This interactive was created by Halina Mader for UNICEF and educates you on the issue of child mortality all over the world.

29. “The Fallen of World War 2”

This interactive by Neil Halloran combines infographics, video, and photos to provide an in-depth look at WWII deaths by time, place, and country. The data viz shows the staggering number of deaths on all sides, especially for Germans.

30. “From Aspiration to Action: What will it take to end Malaria?”

This interactive created by Column Five for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation spotlights efforts to eradicate Malaria. Explore the individual efforts, regions most affected, and where the majority of the finance comes from.

31. “Species in Pieces”

This beautiful interactive celebrates evolutionary distinction using only CSS polygons (created by Bryan James). As you scroll through the endangered species, each animal transforms into the next, making this site not only informative but also visually stunning.

32. “World Inequality Database on Education”

Interactive Things created this interactive for UNESCO to illustrate the disparity in education around the globe. You can compare countries, compare groups within countries, and spot overlapping disparities.

33. “The Dude Map: How Americans Refer to Their Bros”

Dude, bro! This interactive infographic map of the U.S. was created by Quartz. Using data from billions of tweets, it tracks the heaviest uses of various terms of endearment across the country.

34. “U.K. Energy Consumption Guide”

This interactive was created to help Brits visualize their energy consumption. Designed for EvoEnergy by Bryan James, you can quickly compare current consumption trends with those of the past.

35. “Inception”

The movie “Inception” left many of us bickering about what truly happened. But Matt Dempsey puts those debates to rest with his interactive, which helps make sense of the plot.

36. “Small Arms and Ammunition – Imports and Exports”

This interactive was produced by Google. It’s a fascinating look at the transfer of small arms, light weapons, and ammunition across the globe between 1992 and 2010.

37. “People for Periods”

People for periods is an interactive project by Column Five dedicated to exploring the history and state of menstrual health care around the world to start the conversation and normalize the experience.

38. “Poverty Tracker”

This interactive infographic by Fathom focuses on poverty in New York City, guiding viewers through the struggle toward wealth. Data can also be filtered based off of education, gender, age, and ethnicity.

39. “Digital Attack Map: Top Daily DDoS Attacks Worldwide”

Distributed Denial of Services (aka DDos) attacks make websites unavailable by overwhelming them with traffic from multiple sources (usually bots they’ve acquired through malware). This interactive created by Google Ideas and Arbor Networks shows the history of these attacks. This visualization is beautiful—until you realize all the pretty colors are black-market hackers.

40. “How Music Travels: The Evolution of Western Dance Music”

Want to know the roots of trance or blues? This great interactive from Thomson shows the twisted history of music’s roots, layered over a map for maximum clarity.

41. “Film Dialogue from 2,000 screenplays, Broken Down by Gender and Age”

It’s no secret there’s unrest in Hollywood when it comes to gender. To get more perspective, Polygraph sifted through tons of data to see what’s making the scales so uneven. This interactive infographic lets you see the breakdown by genre, amount of words per gender, and more.

42. “The Largest Vocabulary in Hip Hop”

This visualization by Polygraph allows rappers’ vocabulary to be compared side by side, according to the first 35,000 words of their lyrics. The data can be viewed by artist, by region, etc. You can even measure artists’ vocab compared to Shakespeare!

43. “2016 Primary Forecasts”

The elections are difficult to follow, especially when dealing with fickle polls. The 2016 Primary Forecast interactive created by Nate Silver for FiveThirtyEight shows you the latest polls, which you can explore by state, party, or date.

44. “Eurozone Debt Web: Who Owes What to Whom?”

This interactive created by the BBC gives you an overview of the world’s debt. You can analyze debt by country, then trace it back to its source.

45. “The Network Effect”

This is by far one of the most intriguing interactives on the list. Created by Jonathan Harris and Greg Hochmuth, this interactive is a multi-sensory experience with a time constraint, which makes it all the more exciting. As they explain, “Like the Internet itself, the project is effectively endless, containing 10,000 video clips, 10,000 spoken sentences, news, tweets, charts, graphs, lists, and millions of individual data points, all presented in a classically-designed data visualization environment.”

46. “The Most Timeless Songs of All-Time”

In case you were looking for data-driven proof of the best songs of all time, here it is. This interactive infographic from Polygraph used Spotify data to visualize the most popular songs by decade. You can also look at songs rated by performance, Billboard spot, and awards won.

47. “Counting the Hours: This is How You and America Spend Time Each Day”

It’s easy to lose track of time, especially on the weekends when two days tend to fly by like two hours. This interactive infographic by Nathan Yau (FlowingData) shows a breakdown of how Americans spend their time and on what. The infographic is broken into sections looking at time spent working, cleaning, caretaking, sleeping, and eating.

48. “Graph Ratings of Your Favorite TV Shows”

This interactive infographic by Kevin Wu uses data from IMDB and graphs every season of a show, based on ratings. Simply type in any show that you can think of and voila! There’s a graph.

49. “How Music Taste Evolved”

This interactive timeline by Polygraph follows the most popular songs from 1958-2016. You can jump through the decades and jam out to the most popular songs as they move rank.

50. “Conductor”

Although this may be considered more fun than informative, it still makes the list. Alexander Chen’s interactive turns the subway into a string instrument. The more intertwined the lines become the more interesting the music becomes. Click and drag to create your own tune.

51. “Decibels & Decimals”

This awesome interactive created by Brady Fowler visualizes the relationship between listener’s habits and artist similarities on Spotify. Scroll through this tangled web and maybe you’ll find your new favorite artist.

52. “Common MythConceptions: World’s Most Contagious Falsehoods”

The best infographics are the ones that teach you things you didn’t know you needed to learn. David McCandless is back at it again with this interactive infographic, which explores the most prevalent myths.

53. “13 Reasons Why Your Brain Craves Infographics”

Nothing’s better than an interactive infographic that explains why we love infographics. This is a great visual for helping beginners understand the importance of infographics. Brought to you by NeoMam Studios.

54. “The Enlightened Happy Hour: An Interactive Guide To What You’re Sipping”

Happy hour is a time to pretend the world outside doesn’t exist, but a calorie check is a great way to bring you back down to Earth. Column Five’s boozy interactive allows you to drink smarter.

55. “Beneath the Thinking Cap: The Basic Functions of the Brain”

What’s cooler than using your brain to study the functions of the brain? This interactive by OnlineCollegeCourses breaks down the complex functions of the brain for easier comprehension.

56. “The Bright Future of Car Sharing”

This interactive encourages car sharing by letting you “drive” through the interactive, using the arrow keys on your keyboard. It features tons of information alongside simple illustrations, created by Hyperakt and Collaborative Fund.

57. “Stereotropes”

This interactive by Boucoup is an incredibly detailed breakdown of TV tropes, by gender. Based on info from TVtropes.org, it’s a fascinating exploration of the gendered archetypes depicted in media.

58. “The Scale of the Universe 2”

Nothing will make you feel more insignificant than seeing the size of your body scaled alongside the entire universe. Cary Huang’s interactive lets you zoom in or out to compare the size of things in the universe. It’s mindboggling—and even more impressive considering Huang was 14 when he created it.

59. “Project Ukko: Seasonal Wind Predictions”

Wind power is underutilized in many ways. This interactive map explains the basics. The project was created by EUPORIAS to help close the gap between users and scientists.

60. “Watch How the Measles Outbreak Spreads When Kids Get Vaccinated”

The Guardian created this interactive to simulate the effectiveness of vaccines when attempting to prevent a measles outbreak. The graphic shows 10 different communities with varied vaccination rates, including who would and wouldn’t be protected.

61. “How Red Meat Joined the 478 Other Things That Might Give You Cancer”

This interactive, created by Bloomberg, helps readers understand what’s happening in the meat industry, particularly how meat contributes to cancer.

62. “This is Every Active Satellite Orbiting Earth”

This interactive infographic by David Yanofsky and Tim Fernholz shows the more than 1,300 active satellites orbiting space. They can be searched by country, age, purpose, user, and more.

63. “Cosmic Web”

The Cosmic Web, or the idea that the universe is a set of discrete galaxies held together by gravity, is still very abstract. This interactive created by Kim Albrecht combines three models of the cosmic web to let you explore.

64. “The Demographics of Space Travel”

This interactive created by Amanda Montañez for Scientific American shows the demographics of space travel up to 1980. The number of explorers is categorized by country of origin and gender. You can also click on individual data points to reveal the traveler’s name and mission details.

65. “1001 Blistering Future Summers”

This interactive, brought to you by Climate Central, shows what summers are like in your city now—and what summers will be like in 2100. It really puts climate change front and center.

66. “What the World Eats”

This interactive infographic by Fathom gives you an in-depth look at the food intake of 22 different countries. Data can be analyzed by year, the quantity of food, or caloric intake.

67. “When Yellowstone Explodes”

This is another awesomely informative scientific interactive brought to you by staffers at National Geographic. It takes you 500 miles under the Earth’s crust to see what’s underneath one of America’s most beloved state parks.

68. “Snake Oil Supplements”

This interactive infographic by David McCandless allows you to explore the many different solutions to medical ailments, all ranked by their effectiveness.

69. “PlaneTruth”

This interactive by David McCandless (surprise!) is for everyone whose hands sweat more than normal when a plane experiences turbulence. See the specific details relating to every single commercial plane crash of the last 20 years. And just in case you’re wondering, 47% of the crashes were caused by human error.

70. “Global Threat Interactive: What’s the World Scared of?”

Fear has the uncanny ability to transcend language barriers and control the masses. But do we all fear the same things? The Guardian visualized the fears that bind us in this fascinating piece.

71. “200 Years of Immigration to the U.S.”

U.S. immigration is always a hot-button topic, but this interactive by Natalia Bronshtein of Insightful Interaction approaches the subject simply. The visualization breaks down legal immigration over the last 200 years, based on data provided by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

72. “100 Years of Tax Brackets, in One Chart”

The best interactives take a very complicated topic and present it in a simple, easy-to-read graphic. That’s exactly what Alvin Chang of Vox did with this interactive on tax brackets, which shows you the number of tax brackets by presidency.

73. “How Minorities Have Fared in States with Affirmative Action Bans”

This interactive by Ford Fessenden and Josh Keller was created for The New York Times to highlight the issues associated with bans on affirmative action. You can look at data year by year, from individual universities, and different states.

74. “What Would it Take to Turn Blue States Red?”

This political interactive lets you toy with voter turnout to see what it would take to change a state’s party alliance. As you adjust the demographic blocks, the states jump from Democrat to Republican or vice versa. This gem is also brought to you by Nate Silver.

75. “Infinite Jukebox”

This is pretty trippy. This interactive by Paul Lamere analyzes and breaks down your favorite song into specific parts. You can play each individual section to see exactly how the song is constructed.

76. “How Fast is LAFD Where You live?”

When you’re having a heart attack, the cliché “every second counts” could not ring more true. Ben Walsh, Robert Lopez, and Kate Linthicum of The Los Angeles Times created this interactive infographic to accompany their story on longer wait times for rescue teams headed to exclusive neighborhoods.

77. “Out of Sight, Out of Mind.”

This profound interactive infographic by PitchInteractive shows the tragic breakdown of drone strikes. You can search data by attack or victim stats.

78. “Notabilia”

This interesting interactive by Moritz Stefaner, Dario Taraborelli, and Giovanni Luca Ciampaglia visualizes the Wikipedia articles that have been deleted, revealing a larger snapshot of what is conventionally accepted by Wikipedia.

79. “Inequality is Real”

This interactive by Periscopic and the Economic Policy Institute helps you truly grasp the idea of income inequality. Through illustration, animation, and video, you learn what inequality is, how it happens, and how it can be resolved.

80. “You Draw It: How Family Income Predicts Children’s College Chances”

The best part of this interactive by Gregor Aisch, Amanda Cox, and Kevin Quealy for the New York Times is that the interactive first asks your opinion, then shows how your predictions fit into the actual data.

81. “Is it Better to Rent or Buy?”

Like many other infographics on this list, the goal of this interactive by Mike Bostock, Shan Carter, and Archie Tse for the New York Times is educational; it helps viewers figure out whether they should rent or buy. The extent to which you can personalize this interactive is pretty impressive.

82. “20th Century Authors”

Good writers keep good company. This interactive by Stardotstar shows how famous authors are connected.

83. “Who’s Been Working in America?: An Exploration of 50 Years”

This interactive infographic by Periscopic for General Electric shows viewers the demographics of the American workforce over the past 50 years.

84. “U.S. Gun Deaths in 2013”

As the gun control debate rages on in America, this interactive by Periscopic presents the data related to deaths from gun violence in a powerful way: through time stolen from victims.

85. “We Are Sorry to Announce”

This interactive by Harry Stewardson explores the percentage of train delays in the UK over a 15-year period.

86. “Major League Baseball Franchises”

Major League Baseball teams have enormous valuations, reaching into the billions. This interactive by Bloomberg breaks down each team’s value.

87. “Supreme Court Decisions”

The Supreme Court rules on the most significant cases in the country, and it has varied in its leanings over the years. This interactive infographic by Column Five visualizes how the court has ruled (liberally or conservatively) since its beginnings.

88. “Top Secret America”

This interactive infographic brought to you by The Washington Post is an excellent example of web design and journalism intersecting. The interactive lets you explore the secret organizations of the nation as a whole, as well as individually.

89. “Mapping Student Debt: How Borrowing for College Affects the Nation”

Collective student loan debt is up to $ 1.3 trillion. This interactive debt map by Marshall Steinbaum and Kavya Vaghul for the Washington Center for Equitable Growth illustrates the extent of this epidemic in our nation.

90. “The Atlantic Slave Trade in Two Minutes”

This interactive by Andrew Kahn for Slate shows the journey of millions of slaves through the centuries. The interactive can be paused and rewound, allowing viewers to click on individual journeys and see the beginning and ending of each destination, as well as the number of those enslaved.

91. “Mapped: India Predicted to Become the World’s Most Populous Country by 2022”

This interactive map created by Raziye Akkoc for The Telegraph uses the latest data to map each countries’ population rate. Clicking on a country lets you see the rate of population change, as well as the average life expectancy.

92. “15 Trillion Dollars of World trade”

This interactive by Owen Cornec for Harvard’s Center for International Development depicts an economic landscape of countries around the globe. It may take a moment to load, but there’s a lot of data coming together for this graphic, and it’s well worth the short wait.

93. “Nuclear Notebook: Nuclear Arsenals of the World”

Nothing will scare you into a sleepless night like this interactive infographic by The Bulletin, which lets you see how the number of nuclear weapons has increased since the ’40s.

94. “Better Life Index”

This interactive by Moritz Stefaner shows the quality of life worldwide. Input the things that are important to you, and you’ll see which countries would give you the best quality of life.

95. “Baseball Analytics, Chartball Style”

If you want to see a baseball player’s offensive stats all at once, you’ll love this interactive by Andrew Garcia Phillips. Featuring radar charts and single-player visualizations, it’s a deep dive into stats.

96. “Most Common Use of Time, By Age and Sex”

Time is a precious commodity, and we all use it in different ways. Here’s another Nathan Yau interactive that lets you see how you use your time compared to others.

97. “Your Life on Earth: How You and the World Have Changed Since You Were Born”

This interactive from BBC teaches you about yourself, as well as the world around you. Simply answer a few simple questions, then see the data on how have you changed, how has the world changed, and how have we changed the world.

98. “HTML5 & CSS3 Readiness”

This interactive, created by Paul Irish and Divya Manian, shows how HTML5 support has evolved since 2008. Let your nerd flag fly!

99. “Beerocracy: Who Drinks the Most Beer Worldwide?”

People like infographics about beer almost as much as the real thing, so here’s another interactive by Retale that focuses on the world’s beer consumption.

100. “Deep Time”

If you weren’t paying attention in class, this interactive built by Jamie Brightmore breaks down time as we know it—visualizing the entire known history in a single clock. Learn about major events, eons, and everything else you slept through.

101. “The Complete Sports Twitterverse”

Who are the most influential voices in sports? Find out, according to this visualization by Andrew Garcia Phillips, which visualizes the major sports players on Twitter.