A discussion of how these two data sets are used in class is available at: https://pages.graphics.cs.wisc.edu/765-25/pages/two-data-sets/
The idea is that there are two data sets: one in "wide" format, and the other in "tall" format.
See the readme file: census_readme.md
The data was obtained from US census data: https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/county-level-data-sets/download-data/ and processed by course staff.
Data file: full_census_dataset.csv - warning: this is actually tab separated
Use of this data set was inspired by a a class assignment at the University of Vienna.
We provide two versions:
- A version that has data post-1960 that includes a breakdown by sex. This data is derived from data from the World Bank.
- A version that has data for a range of years (including historical data from select countries) that was obtained from Our World in Data.
See the readme file: lifespan_readme.md
The data was obtained from Global lifespan data: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.LE00.IN
Their web page (with some visualizations and explanations) is: https://ourworldindata.org/life-expectancy. We downloaded the data in September, 2025.
Their Readme: readme.md
Their Data: life-expectancy-owid.csv