The periodic table has evolved as a great tool to gain overview across various types of categorical data that is grouped by some common characteristics. The periodic table of chemical elements is not only meaningful due to its content, but also due to its well-arranged framework.
Besides its original use in chemistry, there have been various other ideas for displaying categorical information in a periodic table, such as displaying different centrality indices from network analysis by David Schoch,
or displaying the characters from Lord of the Rings.