Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Department of Urban Studies and Planning

11.220 Quantitative Reasoning and Statistical Methods for Planning

ArcGIS

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ArcGIS > Thematic Mapping

1. To launch ArcMap, from the Start Menu choose Start > Programs > ArcGIS> ArcMap. Click on "A new empty map" and then "OK." Go to File->Save and save the map document as "11220map.mxd."

2. Choose File->Add Data. Navigate to where you saved the gis data folder and open block groups (fivecities_bg), towns (fivecities), and major roads (majmhd). You can select all three by holding down the Ctrl key.

3. Double-click the 'fivecities_bg' layer in the table of contents. This opens the layer properties window in which you can control almost all of the layer characteristics.

4. Click the "Symbology" tab and then "Quantities - Graduated colors" to change the shading scheme using a quantitative variable. Click the "Value" pull-down menu located under "Fields." Select "POP00_SQMI" (population per square mile from the 2000 census).

5. Click the "Classify..." button and change the method to " Quantile" from "Natural Break." Also look at the simple statistics of the data.

6. Click the "Exclusion" button to exclude the block groups that are irrelevant to our research. In this example, we'll exclude the block groups in which no one lives. Do this by double-clicking on the field "POP2000" so that it appears in the bottom dialog box. Then click on the = sign and type 0. Click "OK" three times until you are back at the map window. One block group -- Harvard yard -- will be excluded.

7. The thematic mapping now looks like the following (the color ramp may be different in yours). The white island in the middle of Cambridge is the Harvard yard area that was excluded.

8. Gently click on the file names in the table of contents until you see the box to rename the file. Change majmhd to "Major Roads," fivecities to "City Boundaries" and fivecities_bg to "Block Groups." You can change the drawing order of the files by clicking on a filename and dragging it up or down.

9. Create a Layout composition. Go to View->Layout View. Choose File->Page Setup and change the orientation to "Landscape." Use the "Insert" menu to add a title, neatline, north arrow, scale bar, your name, the date, source of data, and a legend.

Created by Myounggu Kang on January 25, 2004. Edited by Rhonda Ryznar on January 19, 2005.