9/28/2017

Cartography & Geography in GIS and GPS

Choropleth Maps
And
Dot Density Maps

Choropleth Maps:

• Comes from Greek Word: Choros (Place), and plethein (to fill)

• It is a method of cartography representation which employs

distinctive color or shading applied to areas other than those

bounded by isoline

• Display attribute data by statistical or administrative or natural

definite enumeration units

• For Ex: States, County, Countries, Census tracks, Watersheds, Parcels

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• Darker or more saturated hues represent higher values, and lighter or less
saturated represent lower values

• Also can be 3-D prism models; aerial symbolization to depict the height to
represent values

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Map readers use choropleth maps in three ways:

1. To obtain a sense of the overall geographical pattern of the mapped
variable with attention to individual values
2. To compare one choropleth map pattern to another
3. To ascertain an actual value (or the class range) associated with a
geographical area

Important Assumption:
The attribute value is uniformly distributed throughout the enumeration
unit area

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Appropriate data to map:

• When the data occur or can be attributed to definite enumeration units
that are aerial in nature
• Not the Geographic phenomena that are continuous in nature. Ex:
average annual temperature, precipitation etc

Two kinds of data:

• Totals – ex; number of people in a zip code
• Derived data- ex: average annual income in a zip code
** Traditionally, its not acceptable to map total values in choropleth
mapping.. Why??
Other better ways??

• Area-weighted
average
• Density

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Consideration in Choropleth Mapping:

• Type of Geographic phenomenon and its elements
• Map scale
• Sufficient to accommodate symbol recognition
• Area must be large enough for the reader to differentiate areal patterns
• Number and kinds of enumeration units
• Similar to scale
• Larger the number of units, more detail can be present

• Data Processing
• “Know your data”
• Density or average values instead of totals
• Data Classification
• Provides different messages to the audience
• Decide the appropriate classification technique and number of classes
• Equal intervals, arithmetic and geometric intervals, mean and
standard deviation, natural break methods, user defined, etc
• Consider outliers or not

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• Areal symbolization
• Fill colors, shade, patterns – based on amount of detail in the map and
creativity
• Legend Design
• Orientation
• Number of decimal points, thousand separator, etc

• Base map design

• Title
• Neat line, etc

Adding other reference features to the map:

• Only required information
• Careful attention not to clutter the map
• May hide the features wanted to highlight

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Dot Density Maps

• It uses to communicate variation in spatial density
• Works best for data that are tabulated in enumeration areas as totals
• Should not use for ratios, or other derived data (can be misrepresentative)
• The symbol form (size, shape, color, etc) does not change, but the
frequency of dots changes from area to area in proportion to the number
of objects being represented

Advantages of dot density mapping

• The rationale of mapping is easily understood by the map reader
• It is an effective way of illustrating variations in spatial density
• More than one dataset may be illustrated (ex: # of hospitals and UCF)
• Original data may be recovered from the map if the map has been
designed for that purpose

Disadvantages
• Reader perception of dot densities is not linear (ex: one area has 10
times higher dots compared to another area, reader may not estimate
correctly)
• GIS and mapping software typically randomize dots within enumeration
units, resulting dots that may not be close to the phenomena
• IF the map has designed to optimum portrayal of relative spatial density,
it may not possible to recover the original data

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• Dot maps do not work well with data that have an extremely large
attribute data range (ex: population by county)

One-to-One vs Many-to-One

One-to-One also called “Nominal point

thematic mapping”

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General guidelines selecting dot Value and Size

• Dot value that are too high gives the impression that the dots have been
precisely placed, which is not the goal of dot density maps
• Choose a dot value that results in two or three dots being place in the
smallest statistical area
• Preferable to select a dot value that is easily understood. Ex: 5,500 or
1000 are better than 8, 49, or 941
• Select the value and size that harmonized with map scale. This will
require experimentation

Dot Value and Size

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Dot Placement
• At the center of gravity of the enumeration unit
• Randomly/Uniformly distributed throughout the area

Dot Legends
a) Include a notation of dot value
b) Include boxes with representative densities across the range of data
c) Ancillary text for clarifying randomization and the enumeration unit is
also recommended

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END

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