Choropleth Maps and Graduated Symbols: Wine Consumption in Europe

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Choropleth maps show concentrations of many different types of phenomena using graduated colors or patterned symbology and are among the most prominent types of thematic maps. Graduated symbols use variable symbol sizes to represent different value classes of a particular dataset. In this lab, our task was to create a choropleth map comparing population density of European countries and then use either proportional or graduated symbols to represent the annual wine consumption per capita of these countries.  

This map was created using ArcGIS Pro. I chose to display both the population density and wine consumption data using the Natural Breaks classification method because the data distributions for both these datasets are skewed heavily to the right. The Natural Breaks method minimizes within-class variance and maximizes between class differences. I also chose graduated symbols over proportional symbols because I think this map is easier to read when the data is classed. Symbols on the map can be easily matched with corresponding symbols on the legend. 



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