"Cartography in GIS"

This week we learned the basic concepts behind cartography. I was actually surprised that most GIS users don't have much formal cartographic training. I feel like that's important to know when making maps or just working with maps in general. Though this week was mainly an introduction to cartography, I'm sure I'll grasp it (in my concurrent cartography course). This week I also worked more with ArcGIS 10.3. This is a program with a lot of abilities and ways to display or work with data. This week showed how to label and display data while keeping to good cartographic principles. It's quite easy to make a cluttered unappealing map in Arc. The take away this week, is that a good map shows data that is easy to read and understand.

The map I choose for this post is the population map.  I choose it because I feel like it came out the best of the three I made.

This project was to create maps in ArcGIS using the basic principles of cartography. These principles include the more obvious, such as including legends, scale, north arrow and  authorship. It also includes making a map that is at once informative while being aesthetically pleasing. I feel with the population map, I made an aesthetically good map that conveys the information in an easy to read manner.

The map above shows the population of Mexico by state. The color ramp chosen uses a gradient of greens. The darker, the more populated a state.  The greens stand out and draw the eye, while  information (other counties, etc)  providing context blend into the background.