Cartography & Geovisualization

Purpose: maps that communicate honestly. Cartographic choices (class breaks, ramps, normalization, projection) can manufacture or hide patterns; this skill treats them as analytical decisions with stated rationale, not styling.

The first three questions

1. What's the message? One map = one message. If two variables compete, consider small multiples or a bivariate scheme — not twelve legend classes.
2. Normalized? Choropleths of raw counts are population maps in disguise. Rates, densities, or per-capita for area-based color; raw magnitudes → proportional symbols instead.
3. Static or interactive? Print/PDF/paper → matplotlib/QGIS layout; exploration/stakeholders → Folium/MapLibre; big point data → Kepler.gl/deck.gl (GPU).