U.S. Census and American Community Survey microdata from 1850 to the present. Learn More about the IPUMS USA project
How to make effective bivariate proportional symbol maps
In Part 1 of this blog series, I introduced bivariate proportional symbol maps and shared some examples to demonstrate their advantages. In short, when they’re well designed, they can make it easy to see multiple dimensions of a population all at once: size, composition, and spatial distribution.
A key part of that statement is, “when they’re well designed.” Standard mapping tools can make it easy to get started, but getting all the way to a good design still takes some extra effort.
In this Part 2 post, I discuss some key design considerations for bivariate proportional symbol maps, and I provide specific instructions to help you get to a good design.