• assigning colors, markers, sizes, width, patterns, etc.
  
  • frequently organized by themes and standardized
    • transportation, hydrology, civic, etc.
    • blue lake, swamp, school, etc.
  • logical meaning, mimic nature
    • icon of object - e.g. fire hydrant
  • vary size of symbol
    • thickness of lines for streams
    • size of points for cities
• feature type (feature class) influenced by scale
  • point or polygon
    

• mapping a single symbol
• locations, pattern of roads, parcel base map
• using subsets (commercial zoning, all crimes, burglaries, commercial burglaries)
  
  
• mapping by categorical attributes
  • ability to expand - roads (freeway, highway, primary arterial, secondary arterial)
  • ability to simplify - zoning categories
  • ability to query - streams with gravel (spawning), thick canopy, dams, invasive species..
    
    
• analyzing geographic patterns
• distribution of features and events
• differentiates features - e.g. Northern Cal Cities - (800K pdf)
  
  

Index