page_title: Comparison diagram
section_title: First comparative charts
hierarchical_section_title: Comparison diagram / History / First comparative charts
caption_attribution_description: English: This is Finley’s highly sought after c. 1827 map of the comparative lengths of the principal rivers of the world. Details the world’s great rivers in relative to one another and divided by continent. Each river is numbered and refers to a reference list below the chart proper, which names each river and its length. There are a couple of curiosities. The Mississippi is considered, by far, to be the world's longest river. The length of the Nile is grossly underestimated - when this was made the source of the Nile had yet to be determined. The St. Lawrence River is drawn to include four of the five Great Lakes. Engraved by Young and Delleker for the 1827 edition of Anthony Finley's General Atlas .
context_page_description: Comparison diagram or comparative diagram is a general type of diagram, in which a comparison is made between two or more objects, phenomena or groups of data. A comparison diagram or can offer qualitative and/or quantitative information. This type of diagram can also be called comparison chart or comparison chart. The diagram itself is sometimes referred to as a cluster diagram.
context_section_description: In the 1810s the first formal comparative mountains charts emerged. Early examples are:
  Charles Smith's Comparative View of the Heights of the Principal Mountains &c. In The World, published in London in 1816
  John Thomson's A Comparative View of the Heights of the Principal Mountains and other Elevations in the World. published in the 1817 edition of Thomson's New General Atlas.
  Another popular subject became the comparative views of the lengths of the principal rivers in one country or from all over the world. In 1822 William Home Lizars presented a map, entitled "Comparative View of the Lengths of the Principal Rivers of Scotland." And in 1826 
  Anthony Finley (1790–1840) published a "Comparative Map of the Principle Rivers of the World." 
  Other types of comparison charts would soon appear. For example, the "Comprehensive atlas: geographical, historical & commercial," published by William D. Ticknor in 1835 contained a series of different comparison diagrams and charts on:
  Size of Continents, Oceans, Islands
  Heights of Mountains
  Lengths of Rivers
  Size of animal
  Size of planets
  Heights of monuments
  Height of edifices
  Different countries
  Other popular themes in 19th century comparison diagrams were the sizes of lakes, the lengths of waterfalls, and the sizes of Islands.
  One of the first maps to compare the lengths of rivers was the "Map of the Principal Rivers Throughout the World. Comparative Lengths of the Principal Rivers throughout the World." by the political economist Henry Charles Carey and Isaac Lea published their 1822 "A Complete Historical, Chronological, and Geographical American Atlas." In this maps the lengths of the rivers, were presented in a bar chart with horizontal bars. In 1826 the same data was presented in a bar chart with vertical bars, entitled "Table of the comparative lengths of the principal Rivers throughout the World" (see image).
caption: Finley's Comparative Map of the Principle Rivers of the World, 1826.
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