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Tuesday, January 27, 2015

Intro to GIS - Week 3 - GIS Cartography

GIS 4043 Week 3 Lab: GIS Cartography

The purpose of this week’s assignment was to create three maps while learning about ArcCatalog, selecting by attributes, exporting data to a new layer, rasters, symbology, map legends and working with multiple data frames.  The three maps included the population of Mexico by state, the transportation systems of central Mexico, and the topography of Mexico.  I have chosen the map showing the population of Mexico by state, shown below.

This map included the selection of the states in Mexico from a much larger layer containing states and administrative units throughout the Americas.  I was able to create a smaller layer reflecting just the states in Mexico by selecting by attribute and creating a SQL query where the country name equaled Mexico.  The smaller layer allowed me to show only the Mexico states while using the map of the Americas as a background and for the surrounding countries.

In this lab I also learned how to setup the symbology as a graduated color by population (the population by state was included in the attributes table), but of most interest to me, I was able to adjust the range for each class by clicking the value under the Range column which allowed me to select ranges for each color that ended in nice round population figures.  These ranges were carried over to the legend. 

Overall, the lab work for week 3 was filled with features and learning opportunities.




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