this post was submitted on 30 May 2026
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Have you ever done a map using a GIS (Geo-Information System) framework?

And if so, what would you tell someone who is contemplating such a thing with no prior practical experience of such systems?

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[โ€“] tal@lemmy.today 5 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

I've done some maps in GNU R.

Here's a (cropped) choropleth map I did for a discussion thread about legislative representation in Europe:

https://lemmy.today/pictrs/image/b6f28602-ab94-4901-b5e1-158061624c75.png

sourceif (!require("pacman")) install.packages("pacman") pacman::p_load_gh(c("ropenscilabs/rnaturalearth", "ropenscilabs/rnaturalearthdata", "ropenscilabs/rnaturalearthhires")) pacman::p_load( countrycode, dplyr, ggplot2, readr, rvest, tmap, tmaptools, viridis )

page <- read_html("https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=List_of_legislatures_by_number_of_members&oldid=1010580360")

df <- html_table(html_node(page, xpath = "/html/body/div[3]/div[3]/div[5]/div[1]/table"))

df$per_capita <- df$"Population/\nLower house seats" %>% parse_number()
df$name <- df$Country

europe <- df %>% mutate(continent = countrycode(Country, origin = "country.name", destination = "continent")) %>% filter(continent == "Europe")

shapes <- ne_countries(scale = "medium")
shapes_merged <- sp::merge(shapes, europe, by.x = "name", all.x = TRUE, by.y = "name")

map <- tm_shape(shapes_merged, projection =  "epsg:3035", bbox = bb(c(-8, 34.5000, 43, 72))) +
    tm_fill(col = "per_capita", palette = plasma(256), title = "persons", legend.reverse = TRUE) +
    tm_borders(col = "black") +
    tm_scale_bar() +
    tm_layout(bg.color = "#e6f7fe", outer.margins = 0, legend.outside = TRUE,
              legend.outside.position = "bottom",
              legend.position = c(0,.9),
              main.title = "Persons per Lower House Legislative Seat",
              attr.outside = TRUE)

tmap_save(map, width =  1920, height =  1080, dpi =  96, "map.png")

And if so, what would you tell someone who is contemplating such a thing with no prior practical experience of such systems?

Depends pretty much entirely on what it is that you want to do and what software you're using.

The idea would be a custom fantasy world, starting with continental outlines and working my way inwards to focus regions.

And I would use QGIS.