Who created the first well-documented precursor to the modern heatmap in 1873 by visualizing complex social statistics of Paris districts?

Answer

Toussaint Loua

Toussaint Loua, a French statistician, created a hand-drawn, color-shaded matrix in 1873 to visualize statistics across the arrondissements of Paris. This established the fundamental concept of using color gradients to encode data magnitude within a grid.

Who created the first well-documented precursor to the modern heatmap in 1873 by visualizing complex social statistics of Paris districts?
inventorvisualizationheat map