Scottish Internal Migration 2001

Project Description

This project produced an interactive Circos-style chord diagram using D3.js to visualise internal migration flows between Scottish council areas from the 2001 Census.

The visualisation allowed users to:

• Explore bilateral migration flows between all 32 Scottish council areas
• Highlight flows involving a selected council (on hover)
• Filter by migration volume threshold
• View net migration balances for each area

The diagram was inspired by the Circos genomics visualisation tool, adapted here to communicate population movement patterns to a non-specialist audience. It was produced as part of the IMAGE project’s dissemination work on internal migration in the UK.

Technical Details

• Built entirely in D3.js v3 with no external charting libraries
• Data sourced from the 2001 Scottish Census Special Migration Statistics (SMS)
• Responsive SVG layout adapting to browser window size
• Colour-coded by origin council area using a categorical palette

Skills Used

• D3.js
• JavaScript / HTML5 / SVG
• Census data processing (R)
• Data visualisation design