Thursday, February 22, 2007

MOTW #66

This is a map from 1987-88 showing areas suitable for growing Cocoa in the Rio Cobre Valley of Jamaica. The map illustrates what we cartographers had to deal with in the early days of computer maps - a small set of ugly and hard to read shading patterns. The map is remarkably usable considering that. If you zoom in on the image you can actually tell the areas apart and match them to the legend.
Suitability for Cocoa growing was determined by overlaying population density, roads, soils, slope of land, rainfall and temperature. This map was displayed by ESRI to show off the magic of this new technology called GIS.