3D Choropleth

Once upon a time I had to make a lot of Choropleth maps. After awhile they all start to look the same. This story goes back a decade, but one day, a colleague walked by my office and showed me a map. He said, “Doesn’t this look neat, almost like it is in 3D.” He was referring to an old choropleth that had a printing alignment issue.

I looked at that and realized it was the choropleth twist I had been looking for -show the areas as if they were elevation. I could create a fake elevation with the data. Keeping the choropleth colours, but adding a height nuance, you could now see how areas in the SAME category compared.

It is one of my favourite ways to show a choropleth.

I also got to make a huge version of it once!