Vector tiles? When MapQuest and later Google Maps came on the scene we were blown away by the detail, speed, and convenience of “slippy maps” that you could scroll, pan, and drag across. The concept underpinning those maps was the use of tiles: pre-rendered map cells for every specified zoom level that would be loaded by your browser as you scrolled through a map. For many years after their introduction, these slippy maps used raster-based bitmaps as their tiles. Read more

This is the first post from what I hope to be is a series of posts looking at the spatial distribution of different demographic variables in Canadian cities. In this post, I take a look at the diversity of visible minority groups in Canadian cities using Census data. By using a measure that relates diversity to segregation, we can also look at how these cities distribute minority groups and to what extent these cities are segregated. Read more

TL;DR: Small multiples maps are one of my favourite ways to communicate multiple variables with a quantitative and spatial dimension. This example uses small multiples to show the distribution of the most spoken non-English languages in the Toronto CMA. Scroll to the end to see the results. After seeing the excellent electoral results maps from the Berliner Morgenpost, I wanted to experiment with a similar approach for an alternative take on my maps of linguistic diversity in Canadian cities. Read more

The Confusion of Tongues, Gustav Doré, engraving c.1865-1868 Language Diversity Index The Language Diversity Index is a quantitative measure of the diversity of languages found in a given area. In a country like Canada with two official languages, a rich history of diverse Aboriginal languages, and a long history of immigration from a wide range of countries and ethno-linguistic cultures, we would expect to see a relatively high score for linguistic diversity. Read more