Crossword Heatmap

Crossword Heatmap

Inspiration : Curiosity initially around what the most common crossword layout is. Kinda morphed into wondering about distributions of empty spaces and letters.

Description : I downloaded some crossword data from Saul Pwanson. I focused on the NYT crossword which has had two variations for its history, the 15 x15 daily and the 21 x21 Sunday version. For each version, I tallied up counts of characters per cell.

What's visualized above are frequencies that answer the question “When character X shows up, where is it most likely to show up on the board?" The shading is scaled to the max per-cell-frequency of that particular character. So it's really highlighting distribution, not overall frequency.

For example, the character A is far more common than G , but G appears darker because it's very evenly distributed whereas A has a couple of extreme outliers in the top left. It's fun clicking through as some patterns emerge.

Quasi-Groupings

Anywhere works

A G K L O R T W

Great starters

B C F M P

Great enders

D E S Y

Anywhere but the start

Anywhere but the end

H I U

Just the middle

Rarities

J Q X Z

Sources

NYT Crossword Data (2024)

Rising Temperature