The Spread of Walmart

"You might guess that Target and Walmart expanded similarly (I did, at least), but you'd be wrong. Both started in Central United States, and both were officially founded in 1962 by two men who both owned stores under a different name before the Target and Walmart boom. However, besides more rapid growth, Walmart first expanded outwards from its home state before going country-wide while Target seems to have gone wherever opportunity knocked."

http://projects.flowingdata.com/target/

I used to shop at Target store number 3 from time to time when I was a kid. As late as 1983, when I was working for a manufacturer in Taiwan, I had never heard of Walmart, that manufacturer's customer. K-Mart is the third discount store chain that was founded in the same year, 1962.

Discussion of the same visualisation from a while back:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=530062

Choice quote: "Walmart grows like a tumor out of Arkansas. Target grows like an ant colony scavenging for pockets of food."

Excellent visualization! This literally explains the phrase "Walmart's growth has exploded during the early years of this decade"

Did you post this when it came up on HuffPost Business?