Map of the Week

This map shows a strip of desert between Sudan and Egypt called the Bir Tawil Triangle. The Bir Tawil Triangle is significant because it is the only land on earth that is unclaimed by any country.

Bivariate Map

For the bivariate map I chose vacant homes as my proportional symbol and population as my chloropleth symbol. This allows readers to see what areas of Buffalo had the highest number of vacant homes, and compare that to the highest populated areas. I chose houses as the symbol because it gets the point across yet doesn’t clutter the map too much. For the colors I chose a gradient of greens.

Proportional Symbol Map

The world cities map shows the world capitals that have populations greater than 750,000. Since it’s a proportional map I made sure to select a symbol size that allows the smallest cities to be seen, yet doesn’t make the largest cities crowd the map. I also decided to add a drop shadow to the legend to make it stand out.

Dot Map

The dot map shows the distribution of vacant homes in Idaho. I selected 75 for the value of the dots because it doesn’t crowd the map, yet it still shows a good level of detail.

Map of the Week # 2

This map shows us how much of the moon man has actually explored on foot, by putting it into an associatable context. I had no idea how small of an area Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin actually covered!

IDW vs. Kriging

This map compares two interpolation methods, inverse distance and kriging. The kriging map appears more smooth and less detailed in this case.

Inverse Distance Map

This map shows the precipitation grid of Idaho using an inverse distance interpolation method. IDW is an interpolation method that lays a grid over the points we already have data for (the control points) then interpolates the values of the grid by taking into account the values of nearby control points. Like the last time I exported a map as a jpg the border of the map is not showing. I have no idea why this is.