Census API and website updates

Since 2013, a website I developed has provided information on places from the South African National Census of 2011. Recently I’ve developed a GraphQL API to make that data available to other developers. In parallel with this API development, I’ve also added some extra data, and made some changes to the website. Read on for more details.

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A gallery of recent maps

This post presents a selection of maps I have produced in the last few weeks. If you follow me on Twitter or on Reddit you will have seen most of these already. All the images below are clickable thumbnails which link to a full-size version.

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New interactive map of SA election results

Five years ago, after the 2014 general election, I built an interactive map of the election results. Since then the state of the technology for web mapping has moved on, so I’ve developed a completely new version. This new map uses vector tiles for better rendering, includes results for four general elections (2004–2019), and allows you to drill all the way down to voting district level. And here it is.

A screenshot of a site titled 'South African Election Results' and showing the results of the 2019 election by ward.
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South African provinces as they might have been

The post-apartheid political map of South Africa might well have looked quite different. The Eastern Cape might have been divided into two provinces, with the Kat River and Great Fish River on the boundary. The Northern Cape might not have existed, with the Western Cape meeting North West at the Orange River. Gauteng might have been much bigger – or much smaller. The Western Cape might have stopped south of Citrusdal – or it might have incorporated all of Namaqualand.

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Mildly interesting facts about the 2014 election

As “the data guy” for the Democratic Alliance, naturally my job involves working with election result data. This post is a collection of mildly interesting facts I’ve learned about the 2014 elections in the course of my work. I’ll start off with a quite surprising fact: the location of the busiest voting station.

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