The final module of Communicating GIS course involved using proportional symbols and bivariate choropleth on maps to represent different types of data. I find that these map types are excellent at showing common trends and symbolizing data in a unique way. This lab began with using proportional symbols to represent different Indian cities' populations. As recommended in the lab instructions, I opted to use a darker background for the country of India, and a light, bright colored symbol for the cities. This symbol was pink and had a high level of saturation. I opted to use a yellow outline for the city symbols, as this helped them contrast even further with the dark blue background. For the size, I chose a minimum of 5 points and maximum of 40, as I found this combination reduced many points of overlap while still representing the data appropriately. For my legend, I used the nested circle legend design. This allowed for me to show the proportional symbols, while saving space and allowing for easy comparison. I elected to use brighter colored symbols, as these would stick out from the dark-background map. A yellow border was used around the symbol to help them further stick out (especially the smaller symbols on the map). I also included the population figures and lines to show which populations the circles represented.
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Map of India with Customized Coordinate System
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| Close-Up of Proportional Symbols with Applied Symbology |
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| Indian Cities by Population |
The next portion of the lab tasked me with creating a proportional symbol map to show job changes within the Untied States. I enjoyed this part of the lab very much, as I enjoy manipulating raw data to deem it as useful for a meaningful map. I used the field calculator and select by attribute tool to organize the data. This data manipulation also allowed me to place the states with job growth and job loss in their own respective classes, so I could symbolize them on the map with different colors. For this legend, I used a similar approach to the legend in the previous portion of the lab. However, I chose to use hollow nested circles with no background, so that both the job decrease and job increase classes could be represented within a simplified legend. I then included the color schemes and what they represent to the right of the nested circles, so one may understand what color means job growth vs job loss.
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| States' Job Growth/Loss with Proportional Symbols |
For the final part of this laboratory assignment, I created a bivariate choropleth map that shows two variables and how they relate to one another. These variables were % obesity and % physical inactivity. For this final map layout legend, I used a common bivariate legend design. I formatted the legend patches to be alongside each other, in order of the classes (i.e. A to C and 1 to 3). This allowed me to show both variables and how they impact the color scheme. I placed the variables on the bottom and right side of the legend and arrows showing increasing values. The bivariate choropleth map combines both variables to show the user how these variables often coincide with one another. For example, the Southeast portion of the United States had high levels of both inactivity and obesity, resulting in dark brown colors, whereas light gray colors (seen in California and Colorado) indicate that there are low levels of both obesity and inactivity. There are certain instances throughout the map where these variables do not have as strong of a correlation, and these are represented with the other colors on the legend.
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| Bivariate Map Showing Comparing Inactivity and Obesity in the United States |