Country Flags in Data
In a world that is increasingly interconnected, visual communication
plays a critical role in conveying information effectively. One powerful
tool in this arsenal is the use of flags in data visualization,
particularly when presenting country-level data. Flags serve not just as
symbols of national identity but also enhance the clarity and appeal of
data presentations. Here’s why incorporating flags into your data
analysis, such as with the tidycountries package, is so
impactful.
A story using Flags
Imagine you are tasked with preparing a report on the top 10 most
populated countries and their demographic characteristics. Using
tidycountries, you can not only gather essential data but
also embed flags to enhance your presentation.
# Load required libraries
library(tidycountries)
library(dplyr)
#>
#> Attaching package: 'dplyr'
#> The following objects are masked from 'package:stats':
#>
#> filter, lag
#> The following objects are masked from 'package:base':
#>
#> intersect, setdiff, setequal, union
library(DT)
library(htmltools)
library(scales)
# Fetch countries information using tidycountries
all_countries <- get_country_info("all")
# Filter the top 5 countries by population
top_10_countries <- all_countries %>%
select(common_name, official_name, region, population, flags_svg) %>%
distinct(common_name, .keep_all = TRUE) %>% # Ensure unique entries
arrange(desc(population)) %>%
head(n = 10)
# Function to embed flag images
flag_image <- function(url) {
as.character(tags$img(src = url, width = 50, height = 30)) # Convert to a character string
}
# Format the population values with commas
top_10_countries$population <- comma(top_10_countries$population)
# Apply the flag_image function to the flags_svg column
top_10_countries$Flag <- lapply(top_10_countries$flags_svg, flag_image)
# Create the interactive table using DT
datatable(
top_10_countries[, c("Flag", "common_name", "official_name", "population")],
escape = FALSE, # Allows HTML rendering
options = list(
pageLength = 10, # Number of rows per page
columnDefs = list(list(className = 'dt-center', targets = "_all")) # Center align
),
colnames = c("Flag", "Common Name", "Official Name", "Population")
)