GIS stands for “geographic information system”. It has one purpose, to allow a user to quickly and easily gather data in relation to a location. The most common function of GIS is to produce maps. This also allows us to communicate something that might not be obvious from raw data alone. People commonly uses GIS maps to show sales territories and similar information.

While there are a variety of GIS map generators on the market, they do require a level of expertise to use. You need to understand how to convert the raw data into an appropriate map.

GIS Map Types

GIS maps cover a lot of different categories of maps. There are, however, some universally common types of map:

Category Map – this is the most common type of GIS map and is one of the simplest kinds of GIS maps. It allows you to visualise to which category each location belongs. These are mainly for things like sales territories, etc.

Quantity Map – this map is self-explanatory. The map is colour-coded to show where quantities are higher or lower in different locations. This can be used for everything from population density to sales numbers.

Bubble Map – also known as a graduated marker map, it works exactly like a quantity map but uses bubbles rather than colour to denote quantity changes

Heat Map – people utilise these in instances where the location data is so dense that it is impossible to make visual sense of it. So a heatmap is used to map points.

Cluster Map – people use these to solve the same problem as the heat map, to make sense of a large number of features. It also clusters together nearby points into a single point and combines colour, size and labelling to communicate how many separate points the cluster encompasses.

Custom GIS Maps

A cartographer can design a custom GIS map around the data integral to your business. It also takes an expert cartographer to understand how to harmoniously blend your raw data into a functional and aesthetically pleasing map that can benefit your business.

• Are you looking to find the best way to show your staff, franchisors or distributors, your sales territories?
• Do you want to track sales growth in different areas?
• Are you looking to map specific information, like species density or population locations?
• Do you want a map that easily shows your customers your locations?

Contact Cartographics International today, if you answered yes to any of those questions, for your custom GIS Map!