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gteo's avatar
gteo
Regular Visitor
2 years ago

Create US county level map

I'm working on poverty data in Washington state and am having issues trying to create a chloropleth map to visualize the rate of unemployment in each individual county. The map is intended for the public's use so it needs to be easily understandable.

 

These are maps that I've tried:

- Filled map -- the lack of borders around the counties make the map hard to understand since different shades denote different severity of unemployment rate.

- Shape map -- I have not been able to show only and all the counties in Washington on the map. I've tried using the State and County FIPS code, but a number like '0037' get automatically converted to '37', which is a different code.This might be the best way to achieve what I need if I can map out just the counties in Washington. 

- ArcGIS map -- This comes closest to the the visual I want to create. However, the colors are extremely jarring and words on the map are hard to read.

 

Below is an example of what the ideal map looks like:

 

Any insights on how to create this map would be so appreciated. 

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