"The Regional World", version 2

I recently came back to CartoDB to do a bit of experimenting for some GIS work I'm doing this autumn, so I decided to revisit a topic I looked at before: sub-national regions of the world. In a previous version I posted via Twitter I took sub-national boundaries of the world and put together an interactive map (in about 15 minutes, so it wasn't very good). I've now produced a better one. It's not perfect but I have managed to add in an equal area projection version and other simple features - such as scale-dependent labelling and line styling.

The Regional World - version 2

According to Wikipedia, the largest sub-national divisions in the world are the Sakha Republic (Yakutiya) in Russia, Western Australia, and Krasnoyarsk Krai, also in Russia. The first two are more than ten times the size of the UK (which is 244,000 sq km) and number three almost is. If you click on the link above to go to the map then you'll see that you can also click on the equal area version. I did this because web maps often default to the Mercator projection, which causes massive distortion towards the poles and leads people into thinking Greenland is bigger than Africa, which of course it isn't.

The Regional World - equal area projection

The equal area projection does of course mean that areas towards the poles are extremely distorted, but that's part of the deal with some map projections. I've taken the administrative boundaries at face value, but of course they may not be 100% accurate, as the authors of the data acknowledge:

"This is the toughest dataset to keep current. Unlike the United States, other countries constantly rearrange their admin-1 units, slicing and combining them on a regular basis."

Read more about the data

You'll notice that I have put links to a small number of countries on the main map. I chose these because I find them interesting, that's all. This was part experiment with CartoDB and a little SQL (projection) and CSS (scale-dependent styling), part GIS project, part teaching material, partly driven by my interest in regions more generally, and part pre-holiday wind-down. In relation to the latter, just for fun, I have hidden two little artefacts in the main map that only appear when you zoom to a certain level at two places on earth. 

Can you find them? 

Answers via Twitter or e-mail...

Static maps from CartoDB

I've used CartoDB quite a bit recently to create interactive maps. My Historic Buildings of Scotland map and my England Grade I Listed Buildings map have both proved popular. Another map that received lots of traffic was my English Greenbelt map. This one in particular was popular I think because it allowed people to find out exactly where the green belt was near them - or in fact to find out which areas aren't greenbelt. Although interactive maps are great for some things, sometimes we just want to put a static image in a report or on a website and this can often be a bit tricky with interactive content. Luckily, CartoDB allows users to export static image files (png format), and you can customise the dimensions as well. This CartoDB blog post shows you how - though you may need to disable pop-ups in your browser if it doesn't work. This tool opens up the static map in a new browser tab so if nothing happens check your pop-up blocker settings.

View the full size version

As you can see above, I've exported my English Greenbelt map. I often get asked if I have a large static image of it because if you search online there aren't really any large up to date, decent resolution, detailed green belt images. I also added some attribution information (important!) and a basic title. This is just a quick example so isn't perfect in relation to labels and so on but it gives a simple overview of the green belt.

Mapping Blight in the Motor City

In my preparations for the launch of our MSc in Applied GIS, I've been putting together lots of case studies of GIS in action. Luckily for me, this has coincided with the launch of the Motor City Mapping project in Detroit; part of a wider attempt by the city to understand and prevent urban blight. One part of this project has produced an amazing survey dataset covering nearly 380,000 land parcels in the city. An overview of this is provided by Motor City Mapping in the following graphic.

Source: www.motorcitymapping.org

This data was generated by survey staff over a short period of time during winter 2013/4 and is probably the most detailed, parcel-level city survey carried out in recent times. For more about the project, take a look at the short video below. One great feature - in addition to all the rest - is that the final dataset contains a link to the photo taken of each land parcel by the survey staff (residents of Detroit surveyed their own neighbourhoods). The entire dataset is pretty big - close to 1GB - but it can be downloaded via this page and used in your GIS. This direct link worked for me.

The image below shows you what it looks like when you map the data using the land use category. 

Link to bigger version

Finally, since they very cleverly included a photo url for each land parcel in a separate column, I decided to extract a small area and put it in a web map using CartoDB so that you can click each land parcel and see what it looks like, in addition to some of the characteristics of the parcel. I extracted the data for Grand Boulevard since it's an important street in Detroit's history, with important locations such as Lee Plaza, Motown Records and Henry Ford Hospital. Click on the image below to go to the full size version. You'll see that I've coloured the map by building condition - mostly good on Grand Boulevard - and when you click on a land parcel you'll see an image of what's on it plus details about condition, occupancy and use. I also included a date of when the survey was carried out.

Full screen version

This is all part of a wider city planning project called 'Time to End Blight', and you can read more about it on their web pages. The report is a great piece of work in a really difficult time in Detroit's history so it's great to see so many people coming together for this. If you have any interest in cities, urban blight, regeneration or revitalisation then I suggest you take a closer look at the report and its recommendations in particular.

Data visualisation at datavisualization.ch

With so many different maps, infographics and other types of visualisations appearing on the web each day, it can be difficult for those interested in the visual display of quantitative information to keep up with the tools of the trade. Thankfully, the people at Datavisualization.ch in Switzerland have put together a selection of the most powerful and useful tools currently available (see image below). 

The datavisualization.ch examples page

Click on any of the images and you'll see the flipcard format in action, whereby the image flips round and tells you where you can find out more about that particular image, tool and further technical information.

They included an example from Google Fusion Tables that I developed for a newspaper here in the UK but more interestingly they have highlighted a whole range of tools that are either quite new and unknown (e.g. CartoDB) or more for technical experts (e.g. data.js). However, there are tools here that anyone can use - even those with no technical knowledge (e.g. Google Chart Tools). Thanks to Alex Ghita for pointing this out to me.

So, definitely worth a look. I should also add that this is quite similar in nature to the examples provided in a joint CLG/OCSI project a couple of years ago which produced the DataViz pages - in relation to improving data visualisation for the public sector.