Nathan Yau over on FlowingData.com has done a great job creating an animated map showing the growth of Target stores across the U.S.

Well, fortune was smiling on me last week, and I got a hold of data for Target opening dates and locations (thnx, Cole). So here it is - a map that shows the growth of Target from 1962 through 2008.

Nathan has promised to combine the data from this map with his previous work mapping The Growth of WalMart, into one map where you can see the differences.  So we'll keep our eyes out for that.