Tree Census in New York City

Street trees are important to us. They shade urban people in the summer, clean the air, beautify the neighborhoods, help reduce noise, and support important urban wildlife.

Our dataset has information about every street tree in New York City in 2015. We chose the dataset because we are curious about the street trees in New York City, one of the largest cities in the world:

How many trees are there in each neighborhood/borough in New York City? What species are most popular? What species are most rare? Which borough has the best diversity of trees? Do human activities affect the lives of street trees?

Let’s explore together!

Where are the street trees?

The 2015 tree census counted 666,134 street trees citywide.

The map below shows the distribution of all street trees in New York City. The darker the color of the neighborhood is, the more trees there are.

You can play with the slider and hover over each area in the map to explore the pattern of distribution.

As you may figure out, Queens actually has the most trees, with 242,414, followed by Brooklyn with 173,063 and Staten Island with 103,313 street trees.

NYC Tree Density Map by Postal Area

Hover to see the number of trees in that area

Do human activities affect the lives of street trees?

The following two graphs aim to show (any potential) pattern between neighborhood human activities and number of trees.

The treemap on the left shows how many trees are planted in each neighborhood and the most common trees there. The scatter plot on the right shows correlation between neighborhood population and number of trees.

Hover over each rectangle of the treemap layout and each point of the scatter plot to explore.

Each branch of the treemap is given a rectangle standing for a borough, which is then tiled with smaller rectangles representing neighborhoods. A leaf node's rectangle has an area proportional to the number of trees, and the leaf nodes are colored to show different neighborhoods.

Hover to see tree information!

Borough:

Neighborhood:

Trees Planted:

Population Size:

Most Common Trees:

Is neighborhood population related to number of trees? Check this scatter plot! Don't forget to hover to see more.

What tree types are the most popular in five boroughs?

Good diversity of trees in a city is vital, as otherwise disease or an insect can wipe out one particular species of tree. Do the five boroughs in New York City have good diversity in terms of street tree species?

The following stacked bar chart shows how many trees of each species are planted in five boroughs.