Module 2 - Cartography

This week’s module covered cartography and helped me to understand GIS map elements and metadata. In this module, I began to learn how to analyze metadata and view attribute tables. I also learned how to clip data to create new layers in the map. This new technique was my favorite thing that I learned this week.

This map represents the location of the University of West Florida (UWF) main campus. This map shows that UWF is in Escambia County, Florida, north of Pensacola and Ferry Pass. Escambia County is highlighted in the inset map to show its location within the State of Florida. 

In this week’s module, I learned to use UWF GIS Essential Map Elements. I chose a light grey background color for Escambia County, I thought this looked clean and kept the map from looking too busy. I used the university/graduation cap symbol for the UWF location on the map to help the viewer quickly identify that this map shows the location of a university. I placed the scale bar at the bottom in the center to make it easy to see and read. I placed the north arrow at the bottom left-hand side of the map, above the data source and cartographer name so that it was out of the way enough to not be distracting but still easy to find near the scale bar.

I feel like I learned a lot of new things this week. It was a great challenge to consider the best layout for my map and add my own map elements while making sure all of the elements were clear and easy to understand.