This Fascinating GIF Shows How Wal-Mart Spread Across America

Wal-Mart is the dominant retailer in America.

We saw this amazing gif by the blog Excel Hero over at The Washington Post. It illustrates Wal-Mart's gradual spread across the United States.

These amazing time-lapse maps by Flowing Data also help explain how the chain took over the USA in 40 years.

Sam Walton opened his first two stores in Arkansas by 1965:

Ten years later, the retailer had expanded to 104 stores in Middle America:

By the eighties, Wal-Mart had expanded north and east with 741 stores:

And by the 90's almost everywhere had one, with more than 2,000 locations:

Here's the video version:

Rapid Growth of Walmart from Nathan Yau on Vimeo.