Category: mapping

It’s been more than 40 years since Margaret Thatcher became the first female Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. To celebrate Thatcher’s achievements, we mapped all 54 of the United Kingdom’s Prime Ministers, their hometowns, and more.

But first, let’s talk about why Margaret Thatcher is so special. Did you know that if Thatcher were a Duchess, she would have a completely different title from every other Prime Minister to date? Also special about Thatcher is her hometown. She didn’t grow up in a place that produced many Prime Ministers. Plus, she is one of the top five Prime Ministers with the longest term length. However, Thatcher also has a few commonalities with the Prime Ministers of the past. For example, she aligns herself with the most-elected Prime Minister political party of all time.

Now that you know all about Thatcher, it’s time you get to know the titles, hometowns, term lengths, and political parties of the rest of the U.K.’s Prime Ministers.

View Prime Ministers by Hometown in a full screen map

Click around the map above to learn facts about each of the United Kingdom’s 54 Prime Ministers. Then, read on for the trends we pulled from the data.

Prime Minister’s Ever-Changing Roles, Titles, & Parties

The role of the U.K. Prime Minister is quite simple: be the head of government for the entire country. The Prime Minister is in charge of the executive branch of government and holds a house majority within the legislature. The PM may also add “enacting the monarch’s will” and “advisor to the King or Queen of the United Kingdom” to their resumè.

Alternating Titles of the Prime Minister

If, after taking a look at the map, you’re wondering, what is up with all these names, you’re not alone. We were also curious about what The Right Most Graceful could signify. As it turns out, there are three different titles a newly-minted Prime Minister may be dubbed:

• His Grace
  • Dukes or Duchesses
• The Most Honourable
  • Marquesses
• The Right Honourable
  • Everyone else

Forty-seven Prime Ministers our of 54 hold the title of “The Right Honourable,” spelled in the way only the British would. If you yourself manage to score the position of PM, you too will likely be referred to as “The Right Honourable.” This is the automatic title for the Prime Minister, but some may be called “The Most Honourable” instead of “The Right Honourable.” This title is reserved for PMs who already are Marquesses, of which there have been two in history. These folks are Marquesses and Prime Ministers, making the distinction necessary. If a Prime Minister turns out to be a step above a Marquess, called a Duke, they get a title fit for a king: His Grace. Five Prime Ministers earned this title. We want to know if Margaret Thatcher was also a Duke — or Duchess in this case — would we call her Her Grace? Or would we see the creation of an all-new title?

Prime Minister Party Time

By our count, the most popular Prime Minister political party have been the Conservatives. Seventeen of the 54 PMs were of the Conservative party. The second most common party of PMs are the Whigs, of which there were 13. There have also been nine Tory-affiliated Prime Ministers and five Liberal PMs. There have also been five Labour candidates who won the highest elected office in the U.K. Finally, there has been one Peelite Prime Minister, along with others who transitioned from one political party to another. You can see who jumped their party’s ship on the map above by sorting by Party.

Where Do Most Prime Ministers Grow Up?

It may not come as much of a surprise to find out that the majority of the United Kingdom’s Prime Ministers hail from London, England. After all, London is the capital and the largest city in both England and the United Kingdom. Not only that, but there are the Prime Ministers who were born in the city of London and those who were born in Middlesex, an ancient county in England that is now entirely within the area of London. In total, fifteen Londoners and Middlesexers went on to become Prime Minister, indicating that if being PM is your goal, you may want to be born in London. Send a letter to your parents from the womb, Prime Minister hopefuls.

In addition to London, those from Yorkshire can also find hometown representation in Prime Ministers. There have been four PMs who call Yorkshire home. Edinburgh, Scotland, and Lancashire, England each churned out three PMs as well. Finally, Buckinghamshire, Kent, Surrey, and Sussex, England along with Dublin, Ireland produced two Prime Ministers each.

Non-Native PMs

While today the United Kingdom is made up of England, Northern Ireland, and Scotland, this hasn’t always been the case. At one point, Scotland and Ireland were separate from England. However, this history didn’t stop the following men from becoming Prime Ministers.

The Right Honourable William Petty, Prime Minister beginning in 1782 and Field Marshal His Grace Arthur Wellesley (1828) may have been in charge many years apart, but they are both from Dublin, Ireland. They are the only two Irish-born Prime Ministers in history. The Right Honourable John Stuart (1762), The Right Honourable George Hamilton-Gordon (1852), and The Right Honourable Tony Blair (1997) were all born and raised in the capital of Scotland: Edinburgh.

Other notable Scots who held the title include The Right Honourable Arthur Balfour, from East Lothian who became Prime Minister in 1902, The Right Honourable Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman from Glasgow, who was PM in 1905, The Right Honourable Ramsay MacDonald hailing from Moray and Prime Minister in 1924, and more recently, The Right Honourable Gordon Brown from Renfrewshire, Scotland who was Prime Minister from 2007 to 2010. As for the single North American Prime Minister in the United Kingdom? The Right Honourable Bonar Law was from Kingston, Colony of New Brunswick, which is now apart of Canada. He became Prime Minister in 1922.

Double Dipping Prime Ministers

Unlike in the United States, as long as a PM win elections, he or she may continue to serve as Prime Minister until their passing.

These PMs each has been elected into the position two times:

• His Grace Thomas Pelham-Holles
• The Most Honourable Charles Watson-Wentworth
• The Right Honourable William Pitt the Younger
• His Grace William Cavendish-Bentinck
• Field Marshal His Grace Arthur Wellesley
• The Right Honourable William Lamb
• The Right Honourable Sir Robert Peel
• The Right Honourable John Russell
• The Right Honourable Henry John Temple
• The Right Honourable Benjamin Disraeli
• The Right Honourable Ramsay MacDonald
• The Right Honourable Sir Winston Churchill
• The Right Honourable Harold Wilson

More unbelievable are the Prime Ministers who went on to serve a third term:

• The Right Honourable Edward Smith-Stanley
• The Most Honourable Robert Gascoyne-Cecil
• The Right Honourable Stanley Baldwin

And finally, just one PM served four terms: The Right Honourable William Ewart Gladstone

The Longest Terms

The Right Honourable Sir Robert Walpole’s time as Prime Minister lasted for 7,615 days or nearly 21 years. This is the longest of any Prime Minister ever. The next longest term belongs to The Right Honourable William Pitt the Younger. He served for 6,291 days (just over 17 years) during his first term. He then went on to serve a second term of one year and 259 days, for a total of 6,915 days in office. Finally, The Right Honourable Robert Jenkinson served the third longest term of 5,416 days or 59 days short of 15 years.

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Now that you’ve become an expert on all things Prime Minister, it’s time to do the same with analyzing data in Excel. And if we’ve piqued your interest enough in the U.K., note that with BatchGeo you can easily geocode international addresses, including places where you’ve been (and where you want to go) in the U.K. or elsewhere.

What do the Black Rhino, Amur Leopard, and Sumatran Orangutan all have in common? Though they live on different continents, they’re all considered to be “Critically Endangered.” Along with 14 other species, these three animals have a conservation status that is closest to extinction according to the World Wildlife Fund. Explore the map below to see 90 endangered animals and where you can find them. Then, read on to see what each status means and the most common types of animals on the list.

View Endangered Animals Mapped in a full screen map

You can sort the map by the color-coded conservation statuses. Red refers to animals that are “Critically Endangered,” orange is for “Endangered” animals and yellow signifies animals that are “Vulnerable.” Species that are “Near Threatened” are shown in green whereas animals that can be classified as “Least Concern” appear blue on our map.

Conservation Status: What Does Endangered Really Mean?

According to the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) where we got the data for our map, there are five different conservation statuses that are cause for concern. The table below explains the types of conservation statuses ordered from least concerning to the status with the greatest cause for concern.

Conservation Status	Meaning
Least Concern	Doesn’t qualify for any of the other conservation statuses.
Near Threatened	Will probably qualify for a more concerning conservation status soon.
Vulnerable	Faces a high risk of extinction in the wild.
Endangered	Faces a high risk of extinction in the wild.
Critically Endangered	Faces an extremely high risk of extinction in the wild.

Critically Endangered, Endangered, and Vulnerable

All of the conservation statuses on the map are important. However, the term “endangered” specifically refers to animals that are either “Critically Endangered,” “Endangered,” or “Vulnerable.” There are 18 “Critically Endangered” animals out of the 90 that we mapped. Some of these animals include the Saola, Vaquita, and the Yangtze Finless Porpoise, along with 15 others. There are also 30 “Endangered” animals on the map, such as the African Wild Dog, the Black-footed Ferret, and the Poison Dart Frog. Finally, there are 20 animals that maintain a “Vulnerable” conservation status, like hippos, the Black Spider Monkey, the Marine Iguana, and 17 more.

Near Threatened, Least Concern, and Others

Our map also contains ten “Near Threatened” animals and 11 “Least Concern” animals. Some of the animals that are “Near Threatened” are Jaguars, Monarch Butterflies, and the Plains Bison. The “Least Concern” animals on our map include Arctic Wolves and Tree Kangaroos.

There are three additional statuses the WWF sometimes uses to categorize animals that are not on the map. Two of these statuses indicate very few remaining animals or that they have disappeared from the face of the Earth entirely. “Functionally Extinct” or “Extinct in the Wild” animals exist only in captivity; they can no longer be found in the wild. With “Extinct” animals, the name speaks for itself. Scientists and classify an animal as “Extinct” when they’re sure the last known animal of the species has died. The third additional conservation status is “Data Deficient.” These animals don’t have enough data for us to know how many still exist. Orca Whales are “Data Deficient,” perhaps because scientists aren’t too excited about the dangers of tagging a Killer Whale.

Animals with Multiple Sub-Species on the Decline

The following animals are facing the decline of multiple sub-species:

• Elephants
• Tigers
• Whales & Dolphins
• Rhinos
• Turtles & Tunas
• Gorillas & Orangutans
• Leopards
• Sloths
• Penguins
• Pandas & Bears
• Sharks
• Foxs

That’s 16 animal types with two or more sub-species needing a conservation classification! Here’s a breakdown of these animals and their sub-species. “Critically Endangered” animal subspecies — animals currently facing an extremely high risk of extinction in the wild — include the Amur Leopard and three different sub-species of rhinos. The Black Rhino, Javan Rhino, and the Sumatran Rhino are all “Critically Endangered.” Two types of orangutans are also “Critically Endangered:” the Bornean Orangutan and the Sumatran Orangutan. Further “Critically Endangered” animals include three types of gorillas: the Cross River Gorilla, the Eastern Lowland Gorilla, and the Western Lowland Gorilla. The Hawksbill Turtle is also “Critically Endangered,” as is the Pygmy Three-toed Sloth and the Sumatran Elephant. Two species of tigers are also “Critically Endangered:” the Malayan Tiger and the Sumatran Tiger.

“Endangered” animals facing high risks of extinction in the wild include four species of elephants: Asian, Borneo Pygmy, Indian, and Sri Lankan. There are four types of “Endangered” whales: Blue, Fin, North Atlantic Right, and Sei. Many sub-species of dolphins are also “Endangered,” including Ganges River, Hector’s, Indus River, and Irrawaddy Dolphins. Plus, Amur, Bengal, and Indochinese Tigers all face endangerment.

As for “Vulnerable” animal sub-species, we count three elephants, three turtles, and one dolphin. African, Forest, and Savanna Elephants all have “Vulnerable-status.” They face high risks of extinction in the wild, as do Leatherback, Loggerhead, and Olive Ridley Turtles and Amazon River Dolphins. Bigeye Tuna, Giant Pandas, Greater One-Horned Rhinos, Polar Bears, Maned Sloths, and Snow Leopards are also “Vulnerable.”

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This Endangered Animals Map was made with BatchGeo, and you can make similar maps using your own data!

BatchGeo offers a map grouping feature, which is a great way to pinpoint trends within your data you may have missed otherwise. For example, once we grouped our map by Conservation status, we noticed that many Critically Endangered animals are located in Sumatra. The ability to sort any map by type or group will almost always provide new insights, as is the option to change the color of your grouping markers. Plus, you can customize your map’s markers to one of three shapes as we utilized in our map.

May is National Bike Month. To gear up for it, we noted the best — and worst — cities for cycling overall. Now, there are many factors in determining what makes a city a fantastic place for bike-lovers. From ridership and safety to network, reach, and acceleration, there are 12 cities that truly excel at cycling overall. Yet, there are even more cities that avid cyclists may want to avoid, along with a large area of the United States known to be less than bike-friendly. Care to make an educated guess about where your city falls? Check if you’re right about your city’s placement among 484 cities that are either the best or worst for cycling.
The map above has data we pulled from the bike experts at People for Bikes. Sort it by overall cycling score or delve deeper into exactly what makes an ideal cycling city with the various cycling variables.

Cities That Excel at Cycling

What do Wausau, Wisconsin, and Boulder and Fort Collins, Colorado have in common? They each have an excellent overall bike score of 3.5 — the highest of all U.S. cities. While computing a city’s overall bike score may be enough to make your wheels spin, it’s actually pretty straightforward. The overall bike score is comprised of five categories: ridership, safety, network, reach, and acceleration. Let’s break down the top three overall cycling cities by these five subcategories.

Ridership is an estimation of how many people ride bikes and how often they do so. Boulder has the highest ridership score (a 3.1 out of 5) of the three best overall cycling cities. On the other hand, Wausau’s ridership score is just 1.7, while Fort Collins scores somewhere in the middle of the road. As for safety — which takes into account car accidents resulting in deaths or injuries of bikers, pedestrians, and other cars — Fort Collins scores the highest (a 3.7.) Wausau isn’t too far behind with a safety score of 3.3. However, Boulder’s safety score (2.2) indicates that a Colorado cycler’s safety depends on what city you’re in.

What Boulder lacks in safety, it makes up for in network, or how well bike paths lead cyclists where they want to go. Boulder gets a 4.1 in this category. As for the other two top overall cycling cities? Fort Collins and Wausau each score in the threes when it comes to network. Wausau also scores a 3.2 in reach or the consistency in which the city’s bike paths are accessible to everyone. Fort Collins and Boulder’s reach scores are 2.1 and 2.9, respectively. It’s important to note that Wausau is pedaling in the big leagues as the Colorado cities are much more populated. Wausau’s smaller population may be a factor in its ratings. With that said, the smaller Wisconsin city also scores the best (3.9) in acceleration — the rate at which a city enhances and promotes its biking infrastructure. Fort Collins and Boulder score a 3.3 and 2.7, respectively.

Not too far behind the three wheelie great cities for cycling are:

• Portland, Oregon
• Tucson, Arizona
• San Diego, California
• Madison, Wisconsin
• Santa Monica, California
• Washington, D.C.
• New Orleans, Louisiana
• New York, New York
• Carmel, Indiana

These cities have overall biking scores above 3.0, a feat only 12 of the 484 cities on the map can brag about. In fact, the majority of U.S. cities have low overall biking scores. There are 316 cities scoring between 1 and 1.9, 76 cities between 2 and 2.9, and 80 cities with a score below 1.

Cycling Through the Categories

We noted the top three overall cycling cities and their scores in the five subcategories. But having the best overall doesn’t mean they lay claim to the highest — or lowest — scores within each category. In fact, when it comes to ridership, Portland, Oregon scores the highest of the 484 cities with a 3.9. On the other end of the ridership spectrum is Roswell, Georgia. Roswell is the only city with a 0 in ridership.

However, when it comes to safety, one top cycling city does claim the highest score. Fort Collins, Colorado’s 3.7 safety score is the highest in the U.S. The lowest safety score belongs to Foxborough, Massachusetts, a city with a 0 in safety. In network, a top cycling city once again scores the highest. This time, Boulder, Colorado receives the highest score (a 4.1). Comparatively, Paducah, Kentucky comes up short with a 0.5 network score.

Accelerating past the reach category for the moment, the top acceleration cycling score (a 4.6) belongs to New Orleans, Louisiana. Rockford, Illinois, and Bridgeport and Newington, Connecticut all have scores of 0 in the same category. Pedaling back to the reach category, Grand Forks, North Dakota scores the highest: a 4. However, many cities across the U.S. — twenty-five to be exact — score 0 for the same thing. Take a peek at the map above to see if your city is included in the many 0-reach scoring cities, especially if you call Ohio or Massachusetts home.

The Worst Biking Area in the U.S.

If you want to know where in the U.S. you may not want to ride a bike, look no further than the map. The map helped us identify the worst area for cycling: the Northeastern U.S. When you sort the map by overall score and select the “.04-.03” range, you’ll see that the Northeastern U.S., made up of the New England and Middle Atlantic areas, are the worst for cycling. The cities that are especially bad for cycling in this area include:

• Tatamy, Pennsylvania
• Brielle, New Jersey
• Hooksett, New Hampshire
• Cochituate, Massachusetts
• Foxborough, Massachusetts
• Soldotna, Alaska

Moreover, if you keep the map sorted by that lowest overall scoring range and add the “0.9-0.5” range, you’ll note that the Eastern U.S. is much less bike-friendly than the West. Only 12 cities in the West, including the aforementioned Soldotna, Alaska, Hilo, Hawaii, and a city in Minnesota hold overall biking scores under 1. As for the East? A whopping 68 cities have bike scores under 1, a trend only the map could make clear.

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Now you can put your pedal to the medal in one of the best cities in the U.S. for cycling. But if you live in one of the worst cities? You may want to wear a helmet, among other things. Alternatively, if you’re a bike aficionado who prefers to sit on the sidelines instead of hitting the pavement, every year in July, over one hundred serious cyclists gather in France to compete in the Tour de France. Be in the know about the biggest Tour de France winners in history.