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Mark Newman's team did this at least 8 years ago with cartograms, but the general public doesn't care. Lots of free code is available. http://www-personal.umi

Mark Newman's team did this at least 8 years ago with cartograms, but the general public doesn't care. Lots of free code is available. http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mejn/election/2016/ http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mejn/election/2016/ https://newrepublic.com/article/115550/cartograms-are-important-inforgraphic-tool https://newrepublic.com/article/115550/cartograms-are-import...

bobthepanda 6y ago
That specific style of cartogram is pretty bad because it distorts shapes in quite odd ways and humans aren‘t that good at judging spatial relativity. I prefer hex maps. http://blog.apps.npr.org/2015/05/11/hex-tile-maps.html http://blog.apps.npr.org/2015/05/11/hex-tile-maps.html
- lambertsimnel 6y ago
  It would be interesting to see a hex map that represented each state with a number of tiles in proportion to its electoral college votes (or in some other way showed their relative weight). There's one for last year's UK election here (but it doesn't reflect margins of victory): https://www.theguardian.com/politics/ng-interactive/2019/dec/12/uk-general-election-2019-full-results-live-labour-conservatives-tories https://www.theguardian.com/politics/ng-interactive/2019/dec...
  - bobthepanda 6y ago
    NYT has a map showing the states as squares with roughly the same concept. Generally speaking, hex maps work a lot less well for the US because you have to pick between either extremely heavy distortion (to the point of meaningless abstraction), or a massive gap in the Plains and Rockies. https://simonrogers.net/2016/09/22/tilegrams-make-your-own-cartogram-hexmaps-with-our-new-tool/ https://simonrogers.net/2016/09/22/tilegrams-make-your-own-c... The UK's population density is not quite so comically varied; a hex map of the UK still kind of resembles the UK.
    - lambertsimnel 6y ago
      Thanks for your reply. The link especially was fascinating.

bobthepanda 6y ago

That specific style of cartogram is pretty bad because it distorts shapes in quite odd ways and humans aren‘t that good at judging spatial relativity. I prefer hex maps. http://blog.apps.npr.org/2015/05/11/hex-tile-maps.html http://blog.apps.npr.org/2015/05/11/hex-tile-maps.html

lambertsimnel 6y ago
It would be interesting to see a hex map that represented each state with a number of tiles in proportion to its electoral college votes (or in some other way showed their relative weight). There's one for last year's UK election here (but it doesn't reflect margins of victory): https://www.theguardian.com/politics/ng-interactive/2019/dec/12/uk-general-election-2019-full-results-live-labour-conservatives-tories https://www.theguardian.com/politics/ng-interactive/2019/dec...
- bobthepanda 6y ago
  NYT has a map showing the states as squares with roughly the same concept. Generally speaking, hex maps work a lot less well for the US because you have to pick between either extremely heavy distortion (to the point of meaningless abstraction), or a massive gap in the Plains and Rockies. https://simonrogers.net/2016/09/22/tilegrams-make-your-own-cartogram-hexmaps-with-our-new-tool/ https://simonrogers.net/2016/09/22/tilegrams-make-your-own-c... The UK's population density is not quite so comically varied; a hex map of the UK still kind of resembles the UK.
  - lambertsimnel 6y ago
    Thanks for your reply. The link especially was fascinating.