Free Geography Tools

Ducky Sherwood writes to point out a free new service she’s created called Mapeteria. With Mapeteria, you can take a CSV file (comma-separated values) of data for US States, Canadian provinces, or French departements, and plot them as a choropleth map (color shade depends on the value of the data) in either Google Maps or Google Earth.

You’ll have to put the data in a specific format, but the Mapeteria website has full directions, and it’s a logical and straightforward format. You’ll also have to upload the CSV file to a webserver, and enter the web address for the CSV file on the Mapeteria site. Beyond that are a few more optional parameters to enter:

• Divisor – you can divide your data by population, area, or the default of nothing
• Color mapping -Set the colors for low and high data values
• Descriptive text
• High or low resolution

Then just click on the Give me a KML file! or Show it on Google Maps! button, and you’re good to go. A simple alternative to using GE-Graph.

Ducky has some sample datasets to look at in either Google Maps or Google Earth. Here’s the price of electricity for the US in Google Maps:

And here’s the data I’ve always been looking for on French milk production in kiloliters by departement:

About the only thing I wish it had was an automatic scale marker, but you can always add those in the descriptive text.

More info is available on a posting on the KML Developer Support Group

Thanks, Ducky!

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