Choropleth maps

A choropleth is a thematic map where areas are colored in proportion to a variable such as population density. GMT lets us plot choropleth maps but the process is not straightforward because we need to put the color information in the header of a multi-segment file. To facilitate this, some tools were added to the Julia wrapper.

Load packages needed to download data and put into a DataFrame

paises = CSV.File(HTTP.get("https://raw.githubusercontent.com/tillnagel/unfolding/master/data/data/countries-population-density.csv").body, delim=';') |> DataFrame;

Extract the Europe countries from the DCW file

eu = coast(DCW="=EU+z", dump=true);

Generate two vector with country codes (2 chars codes) and the population density for European countries.

codes, vals = GMT.mk_codes_values(paises[!, 2], paises[!, 3], region="eu");

Create a Categorical CPT that allows plotting the choropleth. Note that we need to limit the CPT range to leave out the very high density states like Monaco otherwise all others would get the same color.

C = cpt4dcw(codes, vals, range=[10, 500, 10]);

Show the result

plot(eu, cmap=C, fill="+z", proj=:guess, R="-76/36/26/84", title="Population density",
	colorbar=true, show=true)

Download a Pluto Notebook here