• Question: What type of symbols or things do you put on your maps?

    Asked by hwillis to Nicola on 10 Mar 2013.
    • Photo: Nicola Wardrop

      Nicola Wardrop answered on 10 Mar 2013:


      I use 2 main types of map. The first is a map where different areas have different colours (e.g. imagine a map of the UK where Scotland, England, Ireland and Wales are in different colours). The colours would relate to something like the number of people in the country with a particular disease, or the percentage of people with a disease…so perhaps for a low number it would have a light colour, and for a high number it would have a darker colour.

      The other type of map would have dots on it (so imagine a map of the UK with lots of spots on it for the major cities and towns) – the size of the dots would relate to the number of people in those cities and towns with the disease. The symbols can be quite plain – just a small circle, or you can use things like small stars, crosses, or even symbols of animals if you wanted to!

      Sometimes I use maps with other types of information – things like the number of people living in an area, the average temperature or the type of land cover in different areas.

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