The set of choropleth map templates published in my recent post was well received by the readers of Clearly and Simply.
Paulo, one of my few but faithful readers from Portugal sent me an email including a choropleth map of Portugal by districts. He was kind enough to allow me to publish it here and share it with you:
Download Choropleth Map Portugal (Microsoft Excel 2003, 196.5K)
Muito obrigado, Paulo.
The previous post discussed Choropleth Maps in general, briefly described how to implement them with Microsoft Excel and provided a couple of templates for free download.
The post was focused on the classic version of a Choropleth Map, visualizing the measurements of a statistical variable in different geographical regions on a map by color intensity: the greater the measurement, the darker the color.
The classic version is limited to one variable. This follow-up post describes how to enhance a Choropleth Map in order to visualize more than one variable by using several colors and includes the visualization of “The Great Pop vs Soda Controversy” as an example for free download.
The dashboard of Lithuania at a glance used a county based map of Lithuania to visualize the geographical distribution of the population by color intensity: the darker the color, the higher the value.
Very often, this type of geographical visualization is called thematic map, heat map or statistical map. The less known, but correct expression however is Choropleth Map.
The idea of how to create Choropleth Maps with Microsoft Excel – as brilliant as it is simple – is the brainchild of Tushar Mehta, Microsoft Excel MVP. I simply “borrowed” his idea and code and put it to effective use on the Lithuanian Dashboard.
Many readers of Clearly and Simply have been interested in this technique, but unfortunately I was not allowed to provide an unlocked workbook of the Lithuanian Census Dashboard (see comments on Lithuania at a glance). That’s why I thought it might be a good idea to write this post including a couple of templates for Choropleth Maps with Microsoft Excel for free download.