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Thursday
Sep202012

Cool cartography--Risk mapping at a broad view

I came across this short blurb by  on some tricks for catchy large-scale maps. The bullet-points include:

  • Interesting Topic.  The subjects of these maps inherently represent risk, which we want to understand.
  • Unexpected Scope.  A forest view of something that’s usually seen at the tree-level offers satisfying perspective.
  • Big and Clear.  A single dataset is conceptually simple, and when large enough, it provides its own context-promoting conversation in the wild.
  • Sharable.  A static image is portable and paste-able, easily nestling into articles, blogs, tweets, and PowerPoints.
  • Attractive.  The currency of design buys a second or third look.

There is often a push to make large datasets available through interactive webGIS portals, but I think this makes a good case that there is still also a role for skilled cartography to present information in captivating ways. 

Below is an example of one of the author's (John Nelson) maps, and more can be found here

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