Andrew Hill • May 18, 2016

Making the world's most valuable location data available in CARTO

Today we are releasing a new CARTO technology called the Data Observatory which gives our users access to some of the world’s most valuable location data.

The Data Observatory makes it easier than ever before to analyze and extract insights from your own location data by attaching data-driven context to each point location or polygon region. The technology is packed with hundreds of different measurements of the world and continues to grow each week. Now you can learn about your data’s underlying relationships with demographics, industries, housing, and other topics of interest.

CARTO isn’t only about mapping, it just happens to do it very well. CARTO is really all about extracting value from location data. Often, value comes from visualizing data on a map, but we find that the greatest value can come from exploring the underlying patterns within your data. Uncovering those patterns and performing the best location-driven analyses requires location-driven context–such as how many people exist at a location or the trends in house prices in an area. Data Observatory resources make it easy to gain context from your location data.

A few examples of the resources available in the Data Observatory include:

• Multiple resolutions of population segmentation
• Many scales and regions of boundary data
• Housing and rental price data

An example of how quick it is to create new data with the Data Observatory

Why is the Data Observatory exciting?

The Data Observatory has organized and blended many different data sources and then made them available for you to easily access through CARTO. Let’s take a look a three big reasons why we think you’ll be excited about the Data Observatory.

1. Revealing secrets through location data

We believe your location data is keeping secrets from you. Behind every data point on a map are thousands of dimensions of data that can help you learn why that point exists in that location. You can discover those secrets if you know where to look. The Data Observatory is reducing the time and effort it normally takes people to uncover the hidden measures behind their location data. To do so, we’ve built search and discovery mechanisms that don’t exist anywhere else. For example, you can use your own location data to quickly search for relevant measures and then augment your own data with the results.

2. Making the world’s best data even better

The world is full of amazing location data, but it is pretty hard to use and even harder to get into the perfect form for your use-case. Wherever possible we are going the extra mile to make the Data Observatory useful for whatever needs you have. One example is the data licensing, which adopts the most open and flexible licenses possible, so you can feel safe using this data for your own business endeavors. Another example can be found in our boundary data, where we handle many of the complexities and even make variants (e.g. statistical boundaries versus boundaries suitable for cartography) available to fit different needs at different times.

3. Living, breathing data

The Data Observatory isn’t a single release that will grow old over time, it’s an evolving feature of CARTO. The Data Observatory is kept up-to-date with the authoritative sources of data, and as a CARTO user you will get access as quick as possible to new sources. We are also expanding the available data each week, moving into new themes of data and new regions of the world. We will regularly update you with changes through our newsletter and here on the blog. But you can always get the latest by visiting the Data Observatory documentation.

Get started

The Data Observatory is built right into CARTO, which means you will be able to access tons of great data almost as though it is already in your account. The first release of the Data Observatory is available to Enterprise accounts through the CARTO Builder and Engine and we are working to expand access over time.

If you are itching to get access to the Data Observatory right now, contact our team—we’d love to assist you.

get in touch with our team today

Also stay tuned to our blog and Twitter feed all week as we release interesting stories told through CARTO and the Data Observatory.

Happy data mapping!

About the author

Formerly head of Research & Data at CARTO, Andrew now serves as CARTO’s Scientific Advisor.

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