Flow map

In cartography, flow maps are a mix of maps and flow charts, that "show the movement of objects from one location to another, such as the number of people in a migration, the amount of goods being traded, or the number of packets in a network".[1]

Charles Joseph Minard’s map of French wine exports for 1864.

Overview

Minard's map of Napoleon's disastrous Russian campaign of 1812.

Flow maps can be used to show movement of almost anything, such as:[2]

  • What it is that flows, moves, migrates, etc.
  • What direction the flow is moving and/or what the source and destination are.
  • How much is flowing, being transferred, transported, etc.
  • General information about what is flowing and how it is flowing.

In contrast to route maps, flow maps show little aside from the paths from one point to another.[2]

Other types of flow maps

A non-cartographic flow map showing the relative percentages of cardiac output delivered to major organ systems

Beside the flow maps in cartography there are several other kind of flow maps:

See also

References

  1. Phan, Doantam; Xiao, Ling; Yeh, Ron; Hanrahan, Pat; Winograd, Terry (2005). "Flow Map Layout". Proceedings of the 2005 IEEE Symposium on Information Visualization (InfoVis '05): 219–224. doi:10.1109/INFVIS.2005.1532150.
  2. Harris, Robert L. (1999). Information Graphics. p. 157.

Further reading

  • Dent, Borden D. (1999). Cartography: Thematic Map Design. New York: McGraw-Hill. ISBN 0-697-38495-0.
  • MacEachren, Alan (1995). How Maps Work: Representation, Visualization, and Design. New York: Guilford Press. ISBN 1-57230-040-X.
  • Harris, Robert L. (1999). Information Graphics. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-513532-6.
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