Map Enthusiasts

I don't remember the authors of my textbook, but it was called something like principles of cartography and map design. We didn't learn the names of any particular scholars.

We spent a lot of time learning about color choices, labelling, balance, etc.

We also learned that while some things are conventions in cartography, some things are just a matter of taste.

Without being the designer of this map, I can only speak to how I read the map. First of all, when you're talking about cities, those are inherently geographical, so it makes sense to have them in a map rather than only in a list.

To me, knowing what countries the cities are in or if the city is a capital or not is not that interesting. If that was important data to convey, then you might want to design the map differently.

The interesting thing to me is seeing how much of the income goes towards rent, comparatively. Like, whoa, Lisbon is much worse than the other places that are nearby. Pie charts do well conveying rough percentages, and are relatively easy to design in software. So for me, I like this map, but I get why you would prefer the bar version that you shared in your textbook.

You could argue and I would agree that if lots of people are turned off by pie charts, then the map would be less offensive and more effective if it used a different method of visualization that did not distract from the data it is conveying.

Honestly, what probably bothers me the most about this map is its dumb projection.