Tutorial

MapsGeek Tutorial

Together we're going to build the map of the European Beer Consumption.

Before creating the map, let's see what we need. The map will show the European countries with a different color according to their beer consumption. So we need the European country, it will be our base layer, and the beer consumption which can be found on the Chinese beer Kirin's website.

The european countries are already on MapsGeek, actually all the countries are already there. No need to worry about that.

The beer consumption is shown as a table on the website, so you have two options, you can either enter manually the values on MapsGeek or download this Excel file which is just a copy/paste of the table. I kept one column for the country name and one column for the beer consumption but you can have as many columns as you want.

Let's start a new map

To start a new map, go to 'My Maps' on the top navigation bar. On this screen you'll see all the maps you've created and the public maps which you can also edit.

Let's fill in the form at the top:

Fill in the Title field with your maps title, "European Beer Consumption" in our case and the description, I entered "European beer consumption for 2004 per capita". It's a good idea to be as specific as possible in your map's description, it helps people finding it.

Your map can be public, semi-public or private, we'll leave it private for the moment until it's completely ready. We'll then change it to semi-public or public.

Hit 'Create'

Add the base layer

We're taken to the map interface (MI) which always stay on the left. Since there's no layer right now, the MI ask us for a layer. The default screen shows the public layers. There are three types of public layers, the layers containing information for the whole world, or more detailled information by country. Since we're building a map about several countries, we'll click on the 'World' option and select the 'Countries' layers.

The other options of the layers menu are described here, but we don't need them for now.

Hit the 'Add Layer' button on the right.

Setting up the extent of the map

The MI shows us the whole world. You can see the 'Countries' layer has been added to the layer's list. We'll talk about that later. Our problem right now is that the map shows the whole world whereas we'd like to focus on Europe, so we have to recenter the map on Europe.

To do so, we'll use this button : , you can't really see it but it looks like four arrows symbolizing the extent of the map. Hmm, I have to work on the graphics.

A new window opens with the same map, just a little bigger. This window allow us to zoom in and out and pan the map. To zoom we can use the plus sign or we can Hold the Shift button and drag the mouse around the needed area. Let's do this. Draw a rectangle around Europe like shown above. Don't forget Iceland, they're big beer drinkers. Russia is also in our table but let's say it's ok to cut it out a little bit.

The map normally recenters on Europe, if it's ok for you you can hit 'Save Extent' or pan or resize the map a little bit.

Adding the data

So our map is recentered, everything looks fine, we're now ready to add our data, that's the Beer Consumption.

To do so we'll use the button called 'Create a new data layer' that looks like this : . Once you've hit it, a new window appears again:

Basically we're going to create a new layer based on the geometry of the 'Countries' layer.

Let's fill in the first three fields. The layer's title should be 'Beer consumption', the source is the Kirin's website mentioned before and the unit is 'Liters per capita per year'.

The next three options are the different ways to enter your data:

'List' will give you the list of the countries (restricted to your map's extent) and will let you enter the data manually.

'Manually' is an old option where you can enter the data is this format : coutry:value; for example : Czech Republic:156.9;Ireland:131.1; and so on. It's more useful than it sounds but we'll use the next option:

'Upload' which lets you upload an Excel file (I'll add more formats soon). So browse and choose the beer.xls file and hit upload.

The next window ask you to affect the rows from the Excel file. So match 'Country' and 'Country' and 'Beer Consumption' with 'Beer Consumption'. If you've used the same titles they should match automatically. Hit 'Send'

Setting up the class

The MI now shows the european countries in red, that's very good news. Every country shown in red has been affected a value. You can also see that a new layer called 'Beer consumption' appeared on the MI, that's the one holding the data.

We're now going to set up class of values and affect a representation to these classes.

Let's use the button called 'Edit the Layer's classes' that's on the Beer consumption layer. It looks like this :

So we're faced with many options to build the class but most of the default options presented here are actually perfect for our map. Our data are ranged values, the number of classes (5) is perfect and the Natural break method is also optimum here.

The only thing we'll change is the colors used, we'll use a sequential pre-defined color scheme. Pick the colors you like and hit Calculate at the bottom.

Tuning the class

The MI still hasn't changed, we're now looking at the same page as before with a new part at the top.

The lower part shows the informations you've entered previously in case you'd like to change something. The upper part shows the class calculation results.

This screen gives you the chance to adjust any class color, value etc... we're not going to change anything, just hit 'Save'.

And we're done!

That's it! The MI displays your map with the colored countries. The window on the left show you the class you've entered just if you need to change anything.

Your map is ready to be published, to do so, just click on its title and you'll see the screen you had when we started. You can set it to public or semi-public if you don't want any change made to it.

You can see your map real size by clicking on the binoculars :

Tuning the legend

As you can see on the real size map, the legend shows the layer 'Countries', maybe you'd like to get rid of it, at least in the legend. To do so, just untick the Leg. option on the 'Countries' layer.

If you click on Vis. next to Leg. the whole layer of 'Countries' will disappear.

The Info. button allow you to click on the map to get the Beer consumption. Check the Info. button for the 'Beer consumption' layer. Then go to the real size map and click on a country.

You can change the colors of pretty much anything by clicking on the colored boxes for each class.

Final result

Your map is now ready. You can include it in virtually anything. On the MI, under the map itself is a link (Link to this map:). Just copy the link and include it in an image tag and your map will show up.

There's more info about the different option in the 'Help' menu, the Map Interface help is a good place to start. I'll probably add a more advanced tutorial is there's a need for it. Thanks for watching, I'll be waiting for your Beer consumption maps !