{"id":1842974,"date":"2025-06-23T19:32:27","date_gmt":"2025-06-23T23:32:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/?p=1842974"},"modified":"2025-06-23T19:32:29","modified_gmt":"2025-06-23T23:32:29","slug":"designing-thematic-world-maps-for-smartphones","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2025\/06\/designing-thematic-world-maps-for-smartphones\/","title":{"rendered":"Designing Thematic World Maps for Smartphones"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Jonas Oesch<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

World maps tend to be wide (horizontal, landscape), whereas mobile phone screens tend to be tall (vertical, portrait). This makes world maps small and hard to see on phones: a problem when you\u2019re trying to present data via a thematic world map (e.g. a choropleth map) on a web page, especially if you\u2019re trying to show data on smaller countries. The Neue Z\u00fcrcher Zeitung<\/em> recently did a user study to test the efficacy of two map designs\u2014one that splits continents up and portrays them in different scales to make them more legible on vertical screens, the other a hemispheric bubble map. The results were published in The Cartographic Journal<\/em><\/a>; lead author Jonas Oesch provides a summary in this blog post<\/a>. [Ralph Straumann<\/a>] <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

World maps tend to be wide (horizontal, landscape), whereas mobile phone screens tend to be tall (vertical, portrait). This makes world maps small and hard to see on phones: a problem when you\u2019re trying to… More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"link","meta":{"autoblue_enabled":true,"autoblue_custom_message":"","autoblue_shares":[],"autoblue_post_url":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[29,80],"tags":[433,1691],"class_list":["post-1842974","post","type-post","status-publish","format-link","hentry","category-cartography","category-mobile","tag-choropleth","tag-thematic-maps","post_format-post-format-link"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":3170,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2016\/10\/a-primer-on-election-map-cartography\/","url_meta":{"origin":1842974,"position":0},"title":"A Primer on Election Map Cartography","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"26 October 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"With\u00a0less than two weeks before the 2016 U.S. presidential election,\u00a0it's time for a refresher on election map cartography, particularly in the context of U.S. presidential elections. Cartograms Let's start with the basics:\u00a0at All Over the Map, Greg Miller explains the problem with U.S. presidential election maps\u2014big states with few electoral\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Cartography"","block_context":{"text":"Cartography","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/cartography\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"2012 U.S. presidential results. At right, a cartogram scaled by electoral vote. Maps by Mark Newman.","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/newman-cartograms-2012-1024x335.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/newman-cartograms-2012-1024x335.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/newman-cartograms-2012-1024x335.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/newman-cartograms-2012-1024x335.jpg?resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1530,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2016\/04\/data-visualizations-dirty-little-secret-and-choropleth-maps\/","url_meta":{"origin":1842974,"position":1},"title":"Data Visualization’s ‘Dirty Little Secret’ and Choropleth Maps","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"13 April 2016","format":"link","excerpt":"The Washington Post\u2019s\u00a0Christopher Ingraham compares two choropleth maps of U.S. population growth: while they look rather different, they use the same data.\u00a0\"The difference between\u00a0my map and Pew's\u2014again, they both use the exact same data set\u2014underscores a bit of a dirty little secret in data journalism: Visualizing data is as much\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Cartography"","block_context":{"text":"Cartography","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/cartography\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1834161,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2024\/09\/review-atlas-of-iowa\/","url_meta":{"origin":1842974,"position":2},"title":"Review: Atlas of Iowa","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"20 September 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"Most of the maps in the Atlas of Iowa, which came out last month from University of Iowa Press, are thematic maps: mainly graduated symbol maps and (to a lesser extent) choropleth maps, that show data at the county or (to a lesser extent) census district or precinct level. These\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Book Reviews"","block_context":{"text":"Book Reviews","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/book-reviews\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/atlas-of-iowa-rgb-full.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/atlas-of-iowa-rgb-full.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/atlas-of-iowa-rgb-full.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/atlas-of-iowa-rgb-full.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/atlas-of-iowa-rgb-full.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/atlas-of-iowa-rgb-full.jpg?resize=1400%2C800&ssl=1 4x"},"classes":[]},{"id":880133,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2017\/12\/examples-of-multivariate-maps\/","url_meta":{"origin":1842974,"position":3},"title":"Examples of Multivariate Maps","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"28 December 2017","format":"link","excerpt":"Jim Vallandingham looks at multivariate maps: There are many types of maps that are used to display data. Choropleths and Cartograms provide two great examples. I gave a talk, long long ago, about some of these map varieties. 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