Chloropleth and Graduated Symbol Maps

2000 – 2007 map
1990 – 2000 map

I chose the breaks that I did for both maps, so people would get an easily retained idea of how much the population changed. For example, in the 1990 – 2000 map, there was a county that gained approximately 66% in population. Considering there was only one county in the whole state that rose that much, I decided to simply say it increased by over 50%, so people could quickly understand just how much it increased, as opposed to just “a lot.”

I chose the colors I did on the chloropleth map, because I wanted cool colors to represent counties that were either losing population or remaining stagnant, while hot colors showed which counties were gaining population. Cool colors show desolation while hot colors show the opposite.

I chose high variance of sizes on the black dots against the light gray background in the graduated symbol map, because they would be easy to see and be immediately understood.