Guest Geovisualizations: Spread of Newspapers, Post offices and Kiva investments

There have been a bunch of cool geo-animations that have come to our attention over the past few weeks and we thought we'd share them with you.

First is the animation of the spread of post offices across the United States done by Derek Watkins. His blog post about this visualization is here.

Posted: Visualizing US expansion through post offices. from Derek Watkins on Vimeo.

Second is the visualization of the growth of newspapers (also in the U.S.) presented by the Rural West Initiative and the Bill Lane Center for the American West. The interactive versions is available here and an animation is below.

The Growth of US Newspapers, 1690-2011 from Geoff McGhee on Vimeo.

We became aware of both these thanks to FlowingData.

The final visualization is an animation of the flows of microfinance via the Kiva lending program shown as an exchange of "intercontinental ballistic missiles". Thanks to AAG Economic Geography Specialty Group facebook feed.

Intercontinental Ballistic Microfinance from Kiva on Vimeo.