Mapping Twitter Usage in Nairobi

Idiap Research Institute and Afrotech Lab at EPFL have released an interesting map of geo-located Tweets in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi.

The Visualization of Twitter Data from Nairobi maps Twitter messages sent in the Kenyan capital over a three month period. As well as showing the location of each individual Tweet sent in the three month period the map includes three interesting word clouds and a number of observations the research team were able to make from the data.

The word clouds for the urban settlement of Ongata Rongai, for Wajere Town and the United Nations Complex show the most Tweeted words at each of the three locations. The observations on the map reveal some interesting insights into Twitter usage in the city. For example, one observation notes that the Kibera slum area generates fewer tweets, in contrast to the richer neighboring areas.