A living baobab grown from New York City data. Each language's roots run along real city streets to the districts where it is spoken; the moving lights are its speakers, travelling between their communities; its leaf clusters show where they live.
5 boroughs · 59 community districts
Controls
Dataset
Your own data: on Interartive, open Baobab and choose Try with your data, or connect it through Claude.Each language moves over the real city: streets (NYC DOT traffic counts, bike routes, pedestrian counts), the subway and buses (MTA GTFS). Moving lights are speakers commuting home to home between community districts — one per ~3,000 LEP speakers; a smaller light stands for a smaller community (fewer than 3,000). Rings on the map: each district's languages, nested by size (area = speakers). Trains: MTA real-time arrivals (scheduled service when the live feed is unavailable). Shorelines: NYC Dept. of City Planning; region: NJGIN + US Census. Parks: NYC Parks. Manhattan buildings: NYC 3D Building Model, true scale. Each leaf ≈ 150 speakers.
drag to orbit · right-drag or two fingers to pan
scroll / pinch to zoom toward the cursor, down to street level
double-click to glide to a spot
F to fly: W A S D, Q / E, drag to look
hover a trace, cluster or district for details
hover a legend language to spotlight it
"How to use" (top left) for the guided tour
W A S D move · Q / E down / up · drag to look · Shift faster · F or Esc to land