William Playfair

British mathematician, engineer and political economist (1759-1823)

William Playfair (22 September 1759 – 11 February 1823) was a Scottish engineer and political economist who made important innovations in the field of information graphics. Playfair, who argued that charts communicated better than tables of data, has been credited with inventing the line graphs, bar charts, and pie charts. His time series plots are still presented as models of clarity.

Types of charts

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History

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The Commercial and Political Atlas, 1786

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Financial part

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The series of chart were republished in William Playfair. Lineal arithmetic, Applied to Shew the Progress of the Commerce and Revenue of England During the Present Century. 1798. The second part was then called "National finances ".

The Statistical Breviary, 1801

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Other images

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See also

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