UK Regions Choropleth Map Maker

How the UK Regions Choropleth Map Maker works

UK regions choropleth map maker: what to paste

Two columns: a region 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. The twelve areas are North East, North West, Yorkshire and the Humber, East Midlands, West Midlands, East of England, London, South East, South West, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Matching ignores case and punctuation and understands the usual variants: East or East Anglia for East of England, Greater London for London, Yorkshire or Yorkshire & Humber, NI or N. Ireland, and the ONS two-letter codes NE, NW, YH, EM, WM, EE, SE and SW. Rows that match nothing are listed under Unmatched rows in the stats.

The twelve areas

These are the former Government Office Regions of England, now the ITL 1 statistical areas, plus the three devolved nations, which together are the level at which the ONS, NHS England, the Electoral Commission and most survey houses publish regional breakdowns. If your data is at a finer level such as counties, council areas or constituencies, add it up to these twelve first; a spreadsheet pivot on a region column does the job. The map is drawn in a transverse Mercator projection centred on 2° west, close to the Ordnance Survey National Grid, so shapes match the familiar outline of Great Britain rather than being stretched as on a world map.

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 change on the previous year. Regions without a value are drawn in light grey and marked "no data" in the legend.

Labels and stats

All names, the default, prints a short code at each region's centre (NE, NW, Y&H, EM, WM, EE, LDN, SE, SW, SCO, WAL, NI). Names with data labels only regions that have a value, and Values prints the number in short form. Regions with data counts matches out of 12; Highest, Lowest, Total and Mean are computed over matched regions only. Hover any region for its full name and value.

Exporting

Download SVG gives a vector file with one path per region 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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