Bonne, R. – Antique map of Spain and Portugal

We will make maps.

From «conception» to «publication»

Feel free to interact, ask, experiment... and enjoy

The Fra Mauro map, "considered the greatest memorial of medieval cartography", is a map of the world made around 1450 by the Italian cartographer Fra Mauro. The map is a map of the world and includes Asia, the Indian Ocean, Africa, Europe and the Atlantic. The map is oriented with south at the top.

Let's begin.

The role of data

Data should be seen as a force multiplier in the newsroom (cit. Aron Pilhofer, The Guardian)

Data empowers existing storytelling processes.

It can help to engage with readers.

It's about questions:

Keep questions brief
Include data in your story if questions are clear in your mind
Break questions down
Bear in mind that all questions will need (at least) a data source

e.g. How many students abandon high schools in Italy?
- In Italian provinces?
- In professional schools?
- Before the 5° year?

courtesy of Queen Elizabeth II

Data can be zoomed in/out:

Big picture vs. Local detail
Localize discussions
Let people have insights
Foster comparisons
Engage users
Trigger debates

Early school leaving in Italy, 2015 (Internazionale)

Wait a second.

Why am I talking about data?

As behind every dataviz there is a table...

...so behind every map there is a table

(and a table is actually «data»)

In order to be transformed into a map, a table needs...

Location column(s)

Other column(s)

Data formats

The data formats you need to know

String: 'Hola', '2323abc', '23'
Number: 54
Date: 10/09/2015 (2015-09-10T00:00:00Z)
Location:
- Addresses
- Geographic coordinates (lat, lon)
- Comunidades autónomas
- European countries
- World countries
- etc.

Ingredients to make a map

A topic
Some research questions
Some data sources that respond to your research questions
Table with some columns and rows
One column is a location column
Every column has data of one type

Questions?

Exercise. Go here:
http://bit.ly/e-waste-data

Download the above dataset in CSV
Load it into Carto
Make a choropleth map
Change colors and basemap
Set up infoboxes
Copy embed code and link

Well done, you have created your first geographic dataset.

We are ready to visualise it on something like this.

Digital Cartography