On July 2, 1962 in Rogers, Ark., Sam Walton opened the doors to the first Walmart store. In the fifty years since, Walmart has grown to 8,500 outlets in 15 countries. More than 3,000 of the stores are located in the U.S.

If you can't imagine what thousands of Walmarts look like on a map — and really, who can? — All That Is Interesting ran a GIF showing the huge growth of the big box retailer.

UPDATE: The creator of the Walmart growth GIF, Daniel Ferry, pointed us in the direction of his original post where he explains how he created the animation.