Map Styles

Question 1

What are reference maps?

Answer 1

Emphasis on spatial and attribute accuracy.

Nautical Charts, Topographic Maps, Aeronautical Charts

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Question 2

What are thematic maps?

Answer 2

Highlights patterns and distributions for spatial analysis

Choropleth, Dots, Graduated Symbol

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Question 3

What are symbols for nominal and qualitative distinctions?

Answer 3

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Question 4

What are symbols for ordered quantitative distinctions?

Answer 4

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Question 5

What are choropleth maps?

Answer 5

Very simple value (choros) by Area (plethos) Maps indicate the amount of something in a predefined place like a county, census tract, block group or country. The design of these maps is based on two factors:

1) Classification (creating categories)
2) Symbolization (creating symbols)

Question 6

Research has shown that the maximum number of grey shades that can be distinguished accurately is about ___. Choropleth maps rely on the user to be able to ________-.

Answer 6

5-7

state positively which group each area falls into

Question 7

For categories, Color use can extend the number of categories a little but, these are ranked data, so widely divergent colors are ________.

Answer 7

Not a good strategy as they do not meet the expectations of the reader

Question 8

For choropleth maps, what are the three categorization cut points?

Answer 8

Equal interval
Equal number
Natural breaks

Question 9

When do you use equal interval?

Answer 9

If you want equal parts of the data range in each category

Each category is the same width, not good if outliers in the data (extremely low or high values)

Question 10

When do you use equal number?

Answer 10

If you want equal representation of categories among map areas

An equal number of areas are in each category, does not consider the values only the order – ordinal

Question 11

When do you use natural breaks?

Answer 11

If you want to be sure that the categories are most internally similar

Determine largest gaps in the data, also can be a problem if outliers exist

Question 12

What is the formula for equal intervals?

Answer 12

(max - min)/ number = width

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Question 13

What is the formula for equal number?

Answer 13

sort values low to high. Divide the number of values by the number of categories

number of values/ number of categories = number

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Question 14

How do you compute natural breaks?

Answer 14

Sort Data low to high
Compute the “breaks”
Place category breaks at the “n-1” largest breaks:

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Question 15

When making do maps, what are the two decisions you need to make?

Answer 15

Classification: The number of items per dot – we are mapping counts of objects such as people, so we have too many to show each individual. The classification concept is very simple:
Take the count of people/cows/etc. and divide by the dot value to get the number of dots.Look over the number of dots to see if they are: Enough in small counts. Few enough in large counts. The outcome is not always so simple.

Symbolization: the dot size is variable for visibility, but dots usually exaggerate actual size of the objects they map.

Question 16

Instead of placing a dot for every item, what can you do?

Answer 16

Make a symbol larger in the proportion to the number

Base size: what is the smallest symbol size to be?

Base Value – how many items will that size represent

Question 17

How do you compute proportional sizes?

Answer 17

(the square root of the place value/ the square root of the base value)*base size