GIS 5007 - Map Critique

This week's assignment tasked students with critiquing two maps, a well-designed and a poorly designed map, based on what we learned this week about cartographic concepts. These concepts included the 20 Tuftisms, which were broken down into 6 commandments. The commandments include the following: 

  1. Map substantial information; 
  2. Don't lie with maps; 
  3. Effectively label maps; 
  4. Minimize map crap; 
  5. Map layout matters; and 
  6. Evaluate your map. 
The map I chose as a well-designed map is "The Global Religious Composition Landscape". 


At a first glance the map is esthetically pleasing to the eyes. The author utilized neutral colors for the background and brighter colors to highlight the various religions, while limiting the information present to the 7 predominant religions of the world to prevent overwhelming the reader. This map includes all of the important map elements, except for a scale bar/text, which is seemingly the only down fall. The labels are consistent and do not overshadow the data being displayed. This map also includes additional text, providing bite sized pieces of information about each of the religions displayed. There is also an inset map for each religion further breaking down the data based on population percentages. Lastly, the map includes important information about the authors and sources for reference.

The map I chose as a poorly designed map is a map of languages and dialects in the Middle East and Central Asia. 

While this map does display the many languages and dialects of the Middle East and Central Asia it does not do so effectively. The amount of symbols (colors) present immediately provides a feeling of an overwhelming amount of information to consume and requires the map reader to take a great deal of time to decipher them all. This issue goes against the 4th commandment, minimize map crap, and Tuftism 18, forgo chart junk. The map, due to its scale/map extent, also creates an issue of possible lying with the map (commandment 2). The lie that is possibly created due to an omission of information. The extent cuts off several countries, which can possibly omit a language/dialect spoken in that particular country. Commandment 3, effectively label maps, is another Tuftism that is broken, as this particular map has inconsistent labeling for features that should be consistent and it also lacks any descriptive information other than the labels of symbols in the legend. The inconsistency in the labeling creates an added layer of confusion on top of the large amount of colors utilized. 

The cartographer of this map could have taken several approaches to improve this map. As it relates to the symbology, the map maker could have decreased the categories or created individual maps for each country. The extent of the map could have also been increased to include the entirety of countries included in the map or the data for countries that could not be fully encompassed could have been eliminated to avoid misrepresenting the data. As it relates to the labels, it is important for the cartographer to remain consistent, ensuring that labels representing countries or cities or water bodies are the same font and size. Lastly, the author of this map could have included map elements such as a title, descriptive text box, scale and an overview map to increase the reader’s understanding of what is being presented. 



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