Cartography

Population of Mexican States

This week we concentrated on applying cartographic skills to our maps.  In this map that highlights the varying populations of the states of Mexico, I wanted to help the user focus on the essentials of the map.  To this end, other countries are muted (gray).  Even the North arrow and scale are somewhat muted (neither being particularly useful to the primary information set of this map).  The legend will be important, so is level with the vertical height of Mexico.  The color ramp for the map seems to work well, with darker colors indicating heavier populations. 

Central Mexico :: Urban Areas and Transportation

This map of central Mexico allowed us to play with presenting a number of elements on the map.  I'm pretty happy with the overall color scheme (even though color is not my thing...) but it still seems too busy to me. 

Mexico Elevation Map

This elevation map was our first experience with a digital elevation model (DEM).  I took an approach similar to that with the first map of muting regions outside of Mexico.  Initially, I was using a color ramp with a single color, grading from dark (low elevation) to white (high ~= snow?).  However, today I discovered two tone color ramps and I may be a true believer going forward.  I was really happy with the ability to apply one color (like green) to low land areas and another color (brown in this case) to the high end of the elevation range.