Best Data Viz
Geospatial

Connection Map

Lines connecting locations, showing routes, flights, or relationships between places.

Major Airline Routes

Daily passenger volume

View data (7 rows)
Chart data table: Major Airline Routes
PassengersFromTo
8500New YorkLondon
12000New YorkLos Angeles
6200LondonDubai
4800Los AngelesTokyo
7100DubaiMumbai
9200LondonNew York
3800TokyoSingapore
Make a connection map with your data

Use a connection map when…

  • Flight routes, trade flows, migration
  • Showing connections between cities

Avoid when…

  • Non-geographic relationships (use chord/network)
  • Too many connections

Data it needs

PropertyValue
Min Rows3
Min Columns4
Column Types
stringstringnumbernumber
NotesOrigin and destination as place-name strings or explicit lat/lon pairs, plus a value column. The renderer geocodes named places automatically.

Visual anatomy

Marks
arc/linecircle
Channels
position (lat/lon)line-width
Axes
geographic coordinates

Guiding principles

Consider instead

Common mistakes

  • Too many overlapping lines

  • No width/color encoding for flow volume

History

Common in airline route maps since commercial aviation began in the 1930s.

Accessibility notes

List connections as origin-destination pairs with values.

Related reading

Got data? Let's see what works.

Drop your CSV. You'll get a Connection Map plus four alternatives - ranked by which one actually fits your data best.