Final Project

My final project assignment is to make two maps, which use different mapping techniques, and map two different areas, one map being a portrait, the other being a landscape. At least one of the maps is to have a scale bar. The maps are supposed to utilize the techniques of mapping involving things such as projections, data classification, proper text placement, proper placement of map features, color schemes and color usage, placement of symbols on the map.

My first map is a chloropleth map showing political partisanship (democratic vs republican) within California by congressional district. The second map is a proportional symbol map showing movie production by country in Europe and the surrounding areas.

Map of the Week April 25-May 1

This is a tourist map of the island of Bali in Indonesia, from www. indonesia-tourism.com, this map is interesting because it shows images of several areas on the island on the map and shows where on the map these images are from.

Map 9-Mixed race population in Buffalo, NY

This map shows the distribution of the mixed race population within the city of Buffalo, NY. It is a proportional symbol and chloropleth map. The circles and color both showing the amount of mixed race people in each census tract. With darker colors and larger circles representing a larger mixed race population. There is a clear spacial pattern with large amounts of Mixed race people living in the Northwestern portion of the city especially in the area just North of downtown, and there are very few mixed race people living in the Southern portion of Buffalo. This means that the Northern portion of Buffalo is likely more racially diverse then the Southern portion.

Map 8-Capitol Cities

This is a proportional symbol map with a Conical projection showing capitol cities with populations of greater then 750,000 the size of the dot represents population, as larger dots are capitol cities within a larger population range there are 5 different dot sizes, classes within the map. This map is not quite up to date as the national boundaries are those from 1992 which is why the Ukraine and nations of Central Asia are shown as still part of Russia. The dot values are also based on population values from 1992.

Map 7-Dot map of Vacant Homes in Idaho

This map is a dot map showing the density of vacant homes

in Idaho, 1 dot represents 60 vacant homes. It clearly shows a spacial pattern that vacant homes tend to be clustered around recreational vacation areas such as McCall, Coeur D' Alene and Sandpoint, as well as Boise. The fact that the vacant homes are clustered around vacation areas means that most of the vacant homes are probably second-homes for the wealthy which were unoccupied while the census was being taken.

Map of the Week April 18-April 24

This is a map of the extremely complex Tokyo subway system with the names of the stations in English. I got it from www.traveljapan.com

Map of the Week April 11-April 17

This is a map of the fictional town of Springfield from the Simpsons.

Source: http://simpsonseps.com/cutenewsupdate/data/upimages/map_of_springfield.gif

Idaho Rainfall Maps

The first map, near the bottom, shows annual precipitation in Idaho using the inverse-distance weighting method, the second map, to the right, shows the same data using the Kriging method, while the maps are relatively similar, there are a few noticeable differences. On the Kriging method map, the contour lines are much smoother then they are on the Inverse-Distance map and the change in shade which shows the level of precipitation, is much more gradual in this map, also in the Kriging map much more area in the map lies below the lowest contour value of 10, and much more area in the map lies above the highest contour value of 40, But, the range in values is slightly greater in the Inverse-Distance map. Both maps show that the Northern portion of Idaho receives much more precipitation then Southern Idaho. And the amount of precipitation is especially high in the Rocky Mountains near the Montana border.

Map of the Week April 4-April 10

This is a map of Europe showing EU member nations and which nations were added as members members in 2004 and 2007 it also shows EU candidate nations and EFTA member nations

Source: http://www.nationsonline.org/maps/countries_europe_map.jpg

Map of the week-March 26-April 3

This is a map from political maps.org showing the districts for the US house of representatives, the districts represented by democrats are red and those represented by republicans are blue.

Map 6- Rural population in Idaho

The first figure is my original set of maps showing the proportion of the population of regions in Idaho living in rural areas, displayed using several different classification schemes. The second figure is my edited version of these maps. One change I made was changing the labeling at the top of the legend on each map from “Rural Population” to the name of the classification method being used for that map; therefore the audience has a way to tell which map uses which classification scheme. Also I moved the scale bar and credits towards the center to make the map look more organized, and finally I added a title to the set of maps.

Map 5-Boulder County, Colorado

The map of the left is my original map of Boulder County, Colorado. The one on the right is my edited version. I added halos on the labels of cities which went over the highways so that the city labels could clearly be seen. I also changed the color of the cities from gray to yellow so that they would stand out more. And I changed the width of the park boundaries so that they would be thinner then the county boundaries, becuase the park boundaries are not as important. And finally, I labelled the Peak to Peak highway and the Indian Peaks Wilderness.

Map 4-Generalization of Rivers

These maps show the rivers around the Nez Perce reservation generalized with different methods, the original map is on the right and the new map is on the right, for the new map I added an inset showing a large-scale view of one of the rivers so the distinction between the generalization methods can be seen for that rivers. Also, I rearranged the Legend, North Arrow and Scale Bar to reduce the amount of white space, which was difficult to do for this map.

Map 3-Nez Perce

The map on the right shows the change in the territory of the Nez Perce tribe from 1855 to the present and it shows the major decline in land ownership over that period. The map on the left this is an edited version of this map. I made several changes to this map. I rearranged the map elements slightly to be more spaced apart, since in the original map many of the map elements were bunched up against each other, the map elements also look more organized in the way they are rearranged. Like the second Buffalo map I changed the color scheme to a sequential scheme with different shades of blue, lighter reflecting an earlier time period, and darker being more recent. In addition, I added halos to the town names and added the credits.

Map 2-Population age 18-21 in Buffalo, NY

The map on the right is my original map showing the proportion of the population age 18-21 in each census tract of Buffalo, NY. The map on the left is my improved version of this map. One major change I made with the second map was the color scheme. Since the data I was using was quantitative, I used a single-hued color scheme. I also changed how the data was classed from the quantile method to the natural breaks method. I made many of the same formatting changes inn this map as I did in the previous map, for the purpose of minizating the amount of white-space.

Map 1-Ethnic distribution of Buffalo, NY

I made changes with formatting in the new map, which is the one on the left, the legend is inside the frame on the lower left hand corner, the legend is larger so it is easier to read. Also, the map is enlarged to minimize the amount of white space.