GEOGRAPHY P3 - Graphs & Maps

Geographical enquiry cycle

1) Hypothesis and Planning

2) Design + carry out data collection (considering bias + sensitivity)

3) Process (organise, clean) + Represent (graphs, summary stats, etc) data

4) Interpret results (draw conclusions, considering reliability)

5) Evaluate (identify weaknesses and refine the process to further investigate hypothesis)

Base maps

Blank maps

Choropleth maps

Advantages: Very clear to see spatial patterns

Disadvantages:

- No variations within individual areas

- Suggests figures change abruptly at boundaries

- Hard to achieve a large number of shades with only one colour

Isoline

E.g., contour lines or ones with pressure (in image)

An isoline is a line which is drawn to link different places of equal value

Advantages: Can interpret general trends

Disadvantages: When drawing, hard to position the lines based on only a few data points so may be subjective

Flow line maps

Shows movement between places - thickness of line = value

Advantages: Shows direction and size of movement visually

Disadvantages: Lacks precision unless specific values given

Desire line maps

Shows direction (not size) of movement between places

Advantages: Shows direction visually

Disadvantages:

- Unlike flow line, line is drawn straight from origin to destination, not following actual path of movement and is not prop. to size

- Lots of desire lines may overwhelm the map making it hard to interpret

Sphere of influence map

Often for settlements - sphere of influence is the area from which people come to the town

Advantages: Very visual

Disadvantages: Doesn't show precise data

Thematic maps

Compare nations based on social & economic themes

Route maps

E.g., Road map

Sketch map

Advantages: Good visual memory aid, especially if annotated

Disadvantages: Not accurate

Tables

Bar charts & histograms

+ Shows trends and patterns/Can read values from scale

+ Easy to construct and interpret visually

- Not much space to label categories

Line graphs

+ Easy to compare more than one set of data

+ Lines drawn can help suggest data between values

- Only continuous data

Scatter graphs

+ Shows correlation

+ Easy to construct

+ Easy to find anomalies

- Too few data points can give unreliable correlation

- Too many data points make it unreadable

- Only shows relationship between two variables

Dispersion graph

+ Easy to see patterns and show spread from the mean (sometimes marked as a separate data point)

+ Good for making comparisons

+ Shows anomalies

- Needs numerical data

Pie charts

+ Good for percentages

+ Visual

+ Easy to construct and interpret

- Does not show accurate data values unless labelled

- Too many sectors make the chart unreadable

- Too small a sector means labels are hard to read

Climate graph

Proportional symbols

+ Good visual representation of data

- Scale needs to be accurate

Pictograms

+ Good visual representation of data

+ Easy to construct and interpret

- Doesn't provide specific numerical data

Cross-sections

Shows view of a segment

Only one moment in time so may not be representative

Population pyramids

+ Shows how population is composed

+ General shape can indicate type of population structure

- Can only use for population structure

- Figures broken into age categories so some detail may be lost within them

Radial graphs and rose charts

Radial graphs are used for a variable with time or a variable with (compass) directions.

+ Shows different sets of data at once

+ Good visual representation of data

- Can only be used with specific types of data

- Hard to spot anomalies

Rose chart: A type of radial graph that shows the direction the winds blew from and the length of each "spoke" around the circle shows how often the wind blew from that direction.

Why might a graph be misleading?

Scale does not start at zero

Scale has parts missed out/does not increase uniformly

Lines are drawn too thickly to read information

Axes are unlabelled so we do not know what they represent

There is no key so it is impossible to interpret

Colours stand out more than others

Three-dimensional diagrams distort comparisons

Separating sections of a diagram distorts comparisons