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June 8, 2011

The Best of States, the Worst of States

Frank Jacobs:

Are these maps cartograms or mere infographics?

An 'information graphic' is defined as any graphic representation of data. It follows from that definition that infographics are less determined by type than by purpose. Which is to represent complex information in a readily graspable graphic format. Those formats are often, but not only: diagrams, flow charts, and maps.

Although one definition of maps - the graphic representation of spatial data - is very similar to that of infographics, the two are easily distinguished by, among other things, the context of the latter, which are usually confined to and embedded in technical and journalistic writing.

Cartograms are a subset of infographics, limited to one type of graphic representation: maps. On these maps, one set of quantitative information (usually surface or distance) is replaced by another (often demographic data or electoral results). The result is an informative distortion of the map (1).

Posted by Jim Zellmer at June 8, 2011 4:40 AM
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