Drawing attention via diversity in thematic map design, as demonstrated by student maps of Northern South Africa

In today’s information age, thematic maps increasingly appear in all kinds of media and publications and many users control the map design process themselves. Due to wider prevalence of data, teaching the principles of thematic cartography is gaining interest. Students need to understand the power of thematic maps to reveal geographic patterns and relations, and should learn how to create convincing maps. In this paper, student maps featuring socio-economic themes for Northern South Africa show how attention can be drawn to information hidden in data. Seven students each prepared a black-and-white traditional thematic map and a coloured infographics-style map, which were later enhanced by a well-trained cartographer. Through these maps, we demonstrate that the power of thematic maps depends on the chosen cartographic representation and that diversity of visualization options matters when telling a story with a map. Discussion of the maps illustrates the relevance and challenge of thematic maps for society, the need to develop map literacy, and the possibility to accommodate new visualization trends, like narrative data visualization, in thematic cartography teaching. The emphasis should be on using multivariate data and allowing infographics characteristics, thus fostering creativity and preparing students for a role in interdisciplinary data journalism teams.