Australian States Choropleth Map Maker

How the Australian States Choropleth Map Maker works

Australian states choropleth map maker: what to paste

Two columns: a state and a number, one per row, separated by commas or tabs. A header row is optional; when present the value column's name becomes the legend title unless you set one. States can be full names (New South Wales, Queensland) or the standard abbreviations NSW, VIC, QLD, WA, SA, TAS, NT and ACT, in any case, with or without full stops. Canberra is accepted for the ACT. Matching ignores case and punctuation, and rows that match nothing are listed under Unmatched rows in the stats.

The eight areas

The map covers New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland, Western Australia, South Australia, Tasmania, the Northern Territory and the Australian Capital Territory, the eight units in which the Australian Bureau of Statistics publishes state-level data. The external territories (Christmas Island, Cocos Islands, Norfolk Island) and the Jervis Bay Territory are not drawn. The projection is an Albers equal-area conic with standard parallels at 18°S and 36°S, centred on 132°E, which is the ABS and Geoscience Australia standard for national maps, so each state's shaded area is true to its real size.

Colour scale and classes

Continuous maps the lowest value to the palest tint and the highest to the darkest, with every value in between placed proportionally. Choosing 4 to 7 classes instead splits the range into equal-width bands, each with one colour, which is easier to read against the legend. Single-hue scales (Blues, Greens, Reds, Oranges, Purples) suit data that runs from little to much; Viridis and Yellow to red give more contrast; Red to blue is a diverging scale for values with a natural midpoint, such as swing at an election or change on the previous year. States without a value are drawn in light grey and marked "no data" in the legend.

Labels and stats

All names, the default, prints the abbreviation at each state's centre. Names with data labels only states that have a value, and Values prints the number in short form. States with data counts matches out of 8; Highest, Lowest, Total and Mean are computed over matched states only. Hover any state for its full name and value.

Exporting

Download SVG gives a vector file with one path per state and editable labels. Download PNG renders at one, two or three times the preview width. Copy SVG puts the markup on the clipboard.

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