CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

1 Study Questions with Answers

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

• Which of the following would you consider to be the-

matic maps? Explain your choices. (A) a digital road map available through a mobile app like Google maps; (B) a map using pictographic gun symbols to repre- sent the total number of guns owned by households in each county of Minnesota; (C) a map that utilizes lightnesses of blue to represent different depths to the ocean floor; and (D) a map showing the locations of major cities and major river systems around the world.Thematic maps are utilized to portray the spatial pat- tern of particular themes (or attributes). Maps B and C are clearly thematic maps. The theme for map B is the number of guns owned by households in each county of Minnesota, and the theme for map C is the depth to the ocean floor for each location on the map. Regarding option (A), digital road maps focus on the locations of major roads and highways that are utilized by auto- mobiles and trucks. Other features included on these maps may be the locations of parks and major tour- ist attractions. Such maps are utilized for navigational purposes rather than to portray the spatial pattern of themes. Regarding option (D), this sounds like the gen- eral-reference map that was described in the textbook.Here the emphasis is presumably on locating the cities relative to the major river systems, as opposed to pro- viding an overview of a spatial pattern of a theme. One could, however, consider the cities and river systems as two separate themes and discuss where each “theme” is concentrated and how the two “themes” are related to one another.

• Discuss why the colors shown in Figure 1.1A are inap-

propriate for mapping the percentage voting for Biden in 2020.Individual thematic maps can be used for two basic pur-

poses: to provide specific information and to provide

general information. The colors used in Figure 1.1A are useful for providing specific information in the sense that it is easy to determine which class shown in the legend each state belongs to. However, on this map, it is very difficult to visualize general informa- tion, i.e., the spatial pattern of the percentage vot- ing for Biden. Areas of low and high percentage voting for Biden do not “pop-out” on this map as they do for the more logical color scheme shown in Figure 1.1B.

• Imagine that a GIS instructor asks students in her

class to create thematic maps of a topic that they are interested in. A student interested in COVID-19 death rates in his home state of Missouri uses the Internet and finds that the death rates are conveniently available at the county level. The student then uses Mapbox Studio

(https://www.mapbox.com/mapbox-studio) to create a

choropleth map of the death rates. Finally, the student shows the resulting map to several classmates to deter- mine whether they are able to get useful information from the map. Discuss to what extent the student has fulfilled the five steps given in Figure 1.4.I will make comments on each of the five steps listed in

Figure 1.4:

Step 1: Consider what the real-world distribution

of the phenomenon might look like.This is one step that I felt the student did not fully consider. Rather the student used “death rates con- veniently available at the county level.” Presumably, death rates might vary across a county; for example, rural areas might have higher death rates because people in these areas might be more reluctant to get vaccinated. Although getting access to the more detailed data could be problematic, and the resulting map could be more difficult to construct, the student should at least consider the possibility of collecting more detailed data.

Step 2: Determine the purpose of the map and its

intended audience.The instructor provided the purpose of the map by indicating that “students in her class should cre- ate thematic maps of a topic that they are interested in.” The student should, however, ask the instructor whether she will be the only one looking at the map or whether the entire class will ultimately be examining the map.

Step 3: Collect data appropriate for the map’s

purpose.The student used the Internet to collect the data.Although the Internet is a common source of data, care should be taken to ensure that the data comes from a reliable site and fits the overall purpose of the map.

Step 4: Design and construct the map.

From Table 1.1, I see that Mapbox Studio is an example of software that is used for creating thematic maps. I note that standardized death rates are being mapped with choropleth symbology, which seems appropriate for the county-level data.Solutions Manual for Thematic Cartography and Geovisualization, 4e by Terry Slocum, Robert McMaster, Fritz Kessler, Hugh Howard (All Chapters) 1 / 4

2Study Questions with Answers

Step 5: Determine whether users find the map

useful and informative.I note that the student did “show the resulting map to several classmates to determine whether they were able to get useful information from the map.” Presumably, if there were problems with the design, the student would return to Step 4 and construct another map.

• A geographer decides to evaluate the spatial charac-

ter of tweets (from Twitter) associated with statements about “masking” during the COVID-19 pandemic. For this purpose, the geographer collects all tweets using terms related to masking and creates maps using the geotags associated with each tweet. Explain whether you would consider this a form of “volunteered geo- graphic information.” The chapter indicates that when content collected via the Web has geographic locations (geotags) associated with it, then the content can be consid- ered volunteered geographic information (VGI). In the present case, the geographer is collecting tweets from the Web, and there are geotags associated with the tweets. Thus, this initially does appear to meet the definition of VGI. However, the chapter also indi- cates that when such information is not truly “vol- unteered,” then a more appropriate term would be contributed geographic information (CGI). I feel that individual tweets are not being made as part of a larger effort, and so CGI does seem like a more appropriate term here.

• Define the term “democratization of cartography” and

make arguments for and against its usefulness.Democratization of cartography refers to the fact that virtually anyone can now make maps via the Web. This is desirable in the sense that one no longer needs to be a trained cartographer to create maps. We would suspect that this would lead to a much greater num- ber of maps being produced and possibly some novel maps (e.g., via the map mashups approach described in the chapter). A downside, however, is that some of the maps produced may not meet the design and accu- racy requirements that cartographers have tradition- ally used to evaluate the effectiveness of maps, as was illustrated in Figures 1.1 and 1.7. Although I agree that the democratization of cartography may lead to poorly design maps in some instances, I think that the poten- tial of having a larger number of mapmakers involved outweighs the negative consequences of some poorly design maps. Perhaps there needs to be a greater pres- ence of “Guidelines for effective map design” on the Web. Such published guidelines might reduce the likeli- hood of poorly designed maps. The problem of poorly designed maps might also be tackled through a greater presence of “expert systems.”

• Imagine that you used the unclassed map shown in

Figure 1.8B for a term paper dealing with foreign- owned agricultural land in the United States.

• Why might the instructor of the class in which you

submit the term paper have difficulty interpreting this map in its present static form?My suspicion is that someone who had not worked with the unclassed map would struggle to use it. I can easily see that Maine is the darkest blue and thus has a value of 16.0. However, I find it very dif- ficult to assign values for other states. For instance, the state of Minnesota appears to fall somewhere between 0 and 4.0, but I would be guessing to come up with an appropriate value, and it takes time to determine such a value (i.e., the unclassed map slows processing). Of course, here I am deal- ing with specific information. If I turn to general (pattern) information, I can see where the low and high values are, but I wonder if my instructor could appreciate this given the possible novelty of the unclassed map for them.

• How could data exploration software be utilized

to assist in interpreting the data depicted on this map?A key to data exploration software is the ability to interact with the data underlying the map. I believe that a simple mouse-over operation that provided the precise value for a state when hov- ering over it would greatly enhance the interpre- tation of the unclassed map. For example, when hovering over the state of Maine, I would see the name of the state displayed along with the value 16.0. (I provide this example because I do not have a table indicating what the values for other states would be.) Such a mouse-over operation might also draw a vertical line in the continuous legend shown at the bottom of the map indicat- ing where a particular state falls along the range of the data. Since data exploration software can provide multiple views of the data, another option might be to provide the user the option to show a classed version of the map in addition to the unclassed version.

• Imagine that you have been examining the issue of

death rates due to drunk driving and that you write an article about this issue for your local newspaper. Along with your article, you include a static choropleth map of death rates for the United States at the county level that you feel illustrates key “hot spots” that you point out in your article. In addition, you also provide an interac- tive version of the map that allows readers to examine the data on their own and create alternative choropleth maps of the data. Discuss how the static and interactive 2 / 4

3Study Questions with Answers maps would be positioned in MacEachren’s cartogra- phy-cubed illustration shown in Figure 1.11.MacEachren’s cartography-cubed representation provides a visual framework for illustrating how maps are utilized (including both traditional static maps and modern interactive maps). Looking at the visualization, we see that maps (or mapping systems) can be positioned along three axes. The Public/ Private axis indicates whether the map is viewed privately or is intended for viewing by the general public; the Human-map interaction axis refers to what extent a user interacts with the map; and the Presenting Knowns/Revealing Unknowns axis refers to whether the map is communicating known infor- mation or allowing the user to discover unknown information.The static map that I have created for my newspaper article would clearly fall in the back upper right corner of the diagram, as it presents known information (hot spots that I have determined), is intended for the read- ers of the newspaper (the general public), and readers do not interact with the map. The interactive version of the map that I provide would most likely fall in the front lower-left corner of the diagram, as a user of the software would hopefully glean unknown information, do so privately (or possibly with one or two others), and be able to easily interact with the map and the underly- ing data. Exactly where the interactive version would fall would depend on the flexibility of the software (e.g., does it include just the drunk-driving data or does it include other data that might help explain the drunk- driving data?).

8. Go to the GreenReport (https://greenreport-kars.ku.edu/)

and note two kinds of maps that it produces: the Greenness Map and Difference Map 1. Select the year 2021 and 4/20–5/3 within that year. Discuss the logic of the color schemes used on each of the two maps and summarize what each map tells you (use the “larger images” for your analysis).

Greenness Map: The color scheme used on this map

is logical as greater biomass is shown by a darker green, and lower biomass is shown by a darker brown (i.e., higher biomass areas should appear greener, and very low biomass areas could actually appear brown, as in a desert). Water is represented by a conventional blue, and snow and clouds are represented by white, which is perfectly logical. We see that the southeastern United States has a rela- tively high biomass. In contrast, the northeastern United States is not quite as green, probably reflect- ing the fact that this area is only starting to green up following the winter. Interestingly, the northcentral United States exhibits relatively low biomass, pos- sibly because this is an agricultural area that has not yet greened up. Note that much of the southwest- ern United States exhibits low biomass, which fits my notion of this being a relatively dry area of the United States. I note that snow is apparent in a few isolated spots in the Rocky Mountains of the western United States.

Difference Map 1: Here, a darker green indicates

increased greenness (comparing early-May 2021 to late-April 2021), and a yellow to dark orange indicates decreased greenness for this same period. Areas with little or no change in greenness are indicated with a relatively dark gray. Although the textbook suggested that using the same green color for both the raw higher biomass and the areas of increased greenness could be confusing, I had no problem with this. Similarly, I was comfortable with using yellow and orange to represent decreased greenness. Overall, there did not appear to be a dramatic change in greenness for the period.There did, however, appear to be a distinctive swath of increased greenness from eastern Kansas to south- ern New York State. Some areas of decreased green- ness included central Arizona and western California.One difficulty I had was trying to analyze those areas with a speckled appearance (e.g., one or a few dots sur- rounded by gray). Possibly some sort of generalization operator needs to be applied (or at least that option should be available) so that the map can be more eas- ily interpreted in these areas. I also wondered whether the gray shade could be lightened a bit so that the other colors would “pop-out” more easily. It would be fun to experiment with this!

• 3-D prism maps are constructed by raising enumeration units to a height proportional to the data. Imagine that a cartographer compares the effectiveness of such maps with more conventional choropleth maps and finds that users are able to remember spatial patterns more effec-tively on the 3-D prism maps. Given what has been stated thus far in this question, does it appear that the cartographer has utilized a behaviorist view or a cogni-

tive view? Explain your choice.In a behaviorist view, cartographers treat the human mind like a black box and thus do not attempt to find an explanation for the results. This applies in this case, as there is no indication as to why the 3-D prism maps performed better. In contrast, with the cognitive view, cartographers attempt to determine why certain sym- bols are effective. In the present case, we could ask, “why were 3-D symbols more effective?” One possible explanation might be that the resulting 3-D symbols mesh with the 3-D view that we have of the real world.However, I know from reading about 3-D maps that some people have difficulty seeing in true-3-D (i.e., in stereo), so I wonder whether the results would apply to all map readers. 3 / 4

4Study Questions with Answers

• Choose an official state highway map from your home

state. Many states have Department of Transportation websites from which their official state highway map can be downloaded as a PDF. Use the map to decon- struct its content looking for any hidden meanings or messages within the map. Explain those hidden mean- ings or messages that you find.The answer to this question will be a function of the particular map that a student chooses to deconstruct.

CHAPTER 2: A HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE

ON THEMATIC CARTOGRAPHY

• List three types of cartographic symbolization devel-

oped in early European thematic cartography?Choropleth maps, isoline maps, dot maps.

• Explain the basic idea of “analytical cartography”?

The mathematical concepts and methods underlying cartography and their application in map production and the solution of geographic problems. Analytical cartography includes the topics of cartographic data models, digital cartographic data-collection methods and standards, coordinate transformations and map projections, geographic data interpolation, analyti- cal generalization, and numerical map analysis and interpretation.

• What are the benefits of enabling public access to car-

tographic databases and mapping technologies?Often it is the public—community and neighborhood groups—that have localized knowledge to make deci- sions regarding their environment. By enabling access, these groups can often produce meaningful maps to better assist in planning and providing alternative per- spectives on their community.

• Describe the major cartographic programs that evolved

after World War II?Wisconsin, Kansas, and Washington. Wisconsin was led by Arthur Robinson, the Dean of American cartography, who authored the leading textbook for decades. Jenks led the program at Kansas and focused on statistical cartography and methods of data classi- fication. Sherman led the program at Washington and focused on methods for map design and the visually impaired.

• Who were two early innovators in American thematic

cartography and what were their major contributions?

• Paul Goode, Erwin Raisz, Guy Harold Smith, and

Richard Edes Harrison. Goode was perhaps the ear- liest American geographer who focused on thematic cartography and taught some of the first classes at the University of Chicago. Raisz refined the technique for physiographic mapping and wrote one of the first text- books, General Cartography; Smith was on the faculty at The Ohio State University and developed the gradu- ated sphere maps of population; and Harrison worked at Fortune magazine, producing world views of geopo- litical events.

CHAPTER 3: STATISTICAL AND GRAPHICAL

FOUNDATION

• Assume that the following are some scientists’ pre-

dictions of the year when average temperatures will have increased by 3°C in central Alaska as a result of increased CO

2 concentrations: 2,050 2,075 2,090 2,100

2,125 2,145 2,155 2,185 2,200 2,400.

• Using either pencil-and-paper or a software applica-

tion, construct a point graph of these data.The following point graph was created in R.

• Using terms presented in Chapter 3, discuss the

resulting visualization.The bulk of the data are concentrated on the left- hand side of the graph with a distinct outlier at

• Although we don’t see a distinctive tail (we

just have the single outlier), we can still term this a positive skew.

• Treating the data as a sample, compute the mean,

standard deviation, median, and interquartile range.(Presume that the 25th and 75th percentiles are 2,092 and 2,178, respectively.) Mean = 2,152.5; Standard deviation = 99.20; Median = 2,135.0; Interquartile Range = 86.00.

• Is the mean or median an appropriate measure of

central tendency for these data? Why?The median appears near the middle of where the bulk of the data are concentrated, whereas the mean is pulled in the direction of the outlier. Although there is not a drastic difference between the two measures, in this case, the median is arguably a better sum- mary of where the bulk of the data are concentrated.

• Compute a grouped-frequency table of the murder

rate data shown in Table 3.1, assuming seven classes

• / 4