Learning: Hands-On Mapmaking
Course: Hands-On Mapmaking for Journalism - John Keefe UT Austin
Links to public resources used in the course
Tools Used in the Course
You will need a computer with an internet connection and a web browser. The computer should be a laptop or desktop running one of the popular browsers such as Chrome, Firefox or Safari. Mobile devices such as phones and tablets are not recommended, as it may be difficult to complete the hands-on portions of the class. We won’t have the resources to troubleshoot problems on these devices.
We will use the free features of these commercial services, and if you don't already have an account with each service you should sign up before the class begins:
Datawrapper, a charting and mapping tool. You can create an account or use your Github, Google, Microsoft, or Twitter accounts.
Github, a site for storing and running code. It's where you'll keep your own copy of the class materials and work on your own "computer in the cloud."
Amazon Web Services. This is where we'll put our maps so the public can view them.
We will also use these completely free, open-source tools (there is no need to sign up for these):
Protomaps, which allows us to build self-hosted "slippy" maps without subscribing to tile-based services such as Google Maps or Mapbox.
Mapshaper, a free, powerful tool made by Matthew Bloch of the New York Times.
Tippecanoe, a map tile-maker originally built by Mapbox and now actively maintained by Erica Fischer at Felt.
Reading Resources Week 1 Links:
Datawrapper: https://datawrapper.de
U.S. unemployment data used in the video: https://bit.ly/mapping-data-1
U.S. unemployment data that's more recent (March 2025), if you'd like to use more current figures: https://bit.ly/mapping-data-2025
Mapshaper: https://mapshaper.org
U.S. Drought Monitor:https://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/
Reading Links: Week 1: https://www.datawrapper.de/blog/choroplethmaps https://www.axismaps.com/guide/data-classification Optional Links Week 1:
How to upload your own map, by Datawrapper. Additional information and documentation about how to get shapes into Datawrapper when they don't already exist. Goes into more technical detail than we did in class.
Mapshaper: Introduction to the Command Line Tool, by Matthew Bloch. You know those commands I typed into the Mapshaper website to classify the data, add colors and other styles? There are lots of those commands! Here's an introduction.\
Mapshaper: Command Reference, by Matthew Bloch. This is the full documentation for everything Mapshaper can do. There's a lot here, so it's mainly for advanced users. But don't be afraid to try them out with your own data on the Mapshaper website.
Original data for the U.S. unemployment rate is at: https://www.bls.gov/web/laus/laumstrk.htm Reading Links: Week 2:
GeoJSON.io, for drawing our parade route: https://geojson.io
Protomaps: https://protomaps.com
Brandon Liu, the creator of Protomaps: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bdonl/
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/12/19/opinion/location-tracking-cell-phone.html
https://www.ericson.net/content/2011/10/when-maps-shouldnt-be-maps/ https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jan/28/fitness-tracking-app-gives-away-location-of-secret-us-army-bases: Week 3 Links:
My Github page, where you'll get your code: https: https://github.com/jkeefe
The original copy of the mapping code: https://github.com/jkeefe/protomaps-workshop
The source of our map tiles when we take a slice for Florida: https://github.com/protomaps/go-pmtiles/releases
U.S. Weather Service, historical tornadoes page: https://www.spc.noaa.gov/gis/svrgis/
The Protomaps API, where you can get and use world map tiles for cheap (or free): https://protomaps.org/api
Tippecanoe, the geojson-to-tile tool by Erica Fischer: https://github.com/felt/tippecanoe Reading Links: https://docs.protomaps.com/ Optional Links: https://www.muckrock.com/news/archives/2024/feb/13/release-notes-how-to-make-self-hosted-maps-that-work-everywhere-cost-next-to-nothing-and-might-even-work-in-airplane-mode/
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