Reference Maps

Reference maps are useful to show the lay of the land, such as the geographic context surrounding your research location or area of interest. Reference maps can be as simple as a drop pin location, or more complex (describe). Insets, which are maps nested within maps, either zoom-in to show a particular area in greater detail, or zoom-out to contextualize the area of interest within broader geographical context.

(show examples)

Components of a reference map. (show map with labeling)

Thematic maps

While this workshop focuses on reference maps only, it’s helpful to know your options before choosing an output for your publication.

Another kind of map a thematic map. Writes Statistics Canada: “A thematic map shows the spatial distribution of one or more specific data themes for standard geographic areas.” Thematic maps render the results of spatial anlaysis. QGIS defines spatial analysis as:

the process of manipulating spatial information to extract new information and meaning from the original data. Usually spatial analysis is carried out with a Geographic Information System (GIS). A GIS usually provides spatial analysis tools for calculating feature statistics and carrying out geoprocessing activities as data interpolation.

If you have spatial questions you want to explore with your data, you’ll likely need to perform some kind of spatial analysis within a GIS. There are a couple GIS applications out there that can be downloaded from the web directly to your personal computer; these will be further described in Assembling Resources. Remember, you can alway email library.gis@ubc.ca or book a consult with the Research Commons’ GIS Team if you are not sure what your project will require.

?? Show examples of different kinds of thematic maps, and cases in which you might employ one or another to vizualize your research data. OR direct to spatial stories workshop. (could probably do very simple map here though)

Static or dynamic

Lastly, both reference maps and thematic maps can be either static or dynamic.

Static maps tell a spatial story at a single scale. Static maps can be exported/stored/formatted as an image (.jpeg or .png), can be exported as a pdf, printed or embedded digitally into website or online publication. They can also be included in an academic paper, poster, or flyer. Dynamic maps, on the other hand, allow the user to interact with your spatial story. Dynamic display data in an interactive fashion, allowing viewers to pan around and zoom in and out to reveal more information at different scales. This workshop focuses on static reference maps. If you’re interested in webmapping, check out xyz workshops.

Tools

There are different software available to make reference maps. While this workshop will focus on QGIS, you can also make quick maps using xyz. (see spatial stories for alternate resources/software/tools for reference/static mapping ) This workshop uses QGIS –> more detailed maps for publication, also your own work. QGIS is beginner friendly and if you’re not doing more than making map, super doable. And, if you do decide to do spatial anlaysis, you’re halfway there.

If you’re interested, you can also export from QGIS for more advanced editing in graphics illustration software, like illustrator or insckae, free and open source alternative.