When Maps Lie!

Tips from a geographer on how to avoid being fooled

Maps are big these days. Blogs and news sites frequently post maps and those maps often go viral… they’re all over Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr, and news organizations are understandably capitalizing on the power that maps clearly have in digital space: they can visualize a lot of data quickly and effectively. But they can also visualize a lot of data inaccurately and misleadingly.

The way the data is distributed is important...

While all three maps use the exact same data, the different choices for classes in each map make the number of Hispanic people appear vastly different.

"Americans are taught from an early age to analyze and understand the meaning and manipulation of words, but they are rarely taught the same skills about maps."

Article >