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Charles Joseph Minard (March 27, 1781 in Dijon – October 24, 1870 in Bordeaux) was a French civil engineer noted for his inventions in the field of information graphics.

Minard studied science and mathematics at the École Polytechnique.

After working as a civil engineer on dam, canal and bridge projects throughout Europe for many years, he was appointed superintendent of the École Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées (School of Bridges and Roads) in 1830, a position he held until 1836. He became an inspector in the Corps des Ponts (Corps of Bridges and Roads) from which he retired in 1851, dedicating himself to private research thereafter.

Contents 1 Information graphics 2 See also 3 External links 4 References

Minard was a pioneer of the use of graphics in engineering and statistics. He is famous for his Carte figurative des pertes successives en hommes de l'Armée Française dans la campagne de Russie 1812-1813, an information graph published in 1861 on the subject of Napoleon's disastrous Russian campaign of 1812. The graph displays several variables in a single two-dimensional image:

• the army's location and direction, showing where units split off and rejoined
• the declining size of the army (note e.g. the crossing of the Berezina river on the retreat)
• the low temperatures along the retreat

This graph was nominated by Wainer (1984) as the "World's Champion Graph", for being "(perhaps) the best statistical graphic ever drawn" and is used as an example by Edward Tufte in The Visual Display of Quantitative Information. Oddly, he also calls it "the best statistical graphic ever drawn"^[1]

• William Playfair
• John Snow (physician)

• Translation of Minard obituary from Edward Tufte's site
• Minard's graph available as a poster

Tufte, E. R. (2001). The visual display of quantitative information (2nd ed.). Cheshire, CT: Graphics.

Wainer, H. (1984). How to display data badly. American Statistician, 38, 137-147.