Module 5 - Visualizing Geospatial Data

Overview and Deliverables

  • 9/28: Attend the course meetup at 8:00PM Eastern
  • Story 3 is assigned this week and due Sunday 10/11 (end of week 6)

During this week we will learn about how to make visualizations of geospatial data.

Readings

  1. Wilke - Chapter 15: Visualizing geospatial data, which teaches some general principles of geospatial data visualization
  2. “Lying With Maps”, a chapter from a geography textbook. In particular focus on the section on the ecological fallacy.
  3. If you use R: Chapter 7 of Kieran Healy’s book (for the R user, but actually useful in general)
  4. If you use Python: “Around the World in 80 days: An Introduction to Working With Geodata and Cartopy”, a tutorial for the python/matplotlib user

Meetup

Slides: Meetup 5 - Visualizing Geospatial Data (PDF)

In this meetup we discuss how to make a quarto slideshow, and how to visualize geospatial data. We go over common issues that arise when making maps, including the ecological fallacy/Modifiable Areal Unit Problem. We explore the simple features library and show how it and other tools in R can make different types of geospatial visualizations.

Spring 2025 recording | Bonus video