Map Fans: Please Help!

[Dr. Arch]

For my dissertation project, I need to make a custom map (it has to include exactly Canada, Mexico, the U.S. (including Hawai'i, Alaska, and Puerto Rico and none of the other territories [e.g. Guam, U.S. VI, etc.])).

I would also need a way to highlight states (for the U.S.) and the other two countries in different colors.

Does anyone have a tool in mind? All the online tools I've found have pre-made maps you can play around with, but they're always missing some element that I need or including an element that I do not want (like Cuba and the Dominican Republic, for instance).

Any help is appreciated!!!

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

I would refer you to GIS if I knew more about it, but I’m not even sure who our forum experts are and ArcGIS is expensive. That said, such a program allows the in-application editing of shapfiles so that you would be able to, for instance, delete Cuba.

EDIT: have you spoken to your school’s geography or urban planning departments? They should have people with the requisite knowledge.

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

I actually am looking for an easily editable map of the US and Canada for my timeline since we’re on the subject.

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

I would refer you to GIS if I knew more about it, but I’m not even sure who our forum experts are and ArcGIS is expensive. That said, such a program allows the in-application editing of shapfiles so that you would be able to, for instance, delete Cuba.

EDIT: have you spoken to your school’s geography or urban planning departments? They should have people with the requisite knowledge.

QGIS is free to download, but most colleges with any kind of geography/planning/earth science departments would also have computers with access to ArcGIS available for students.

At one point there was a free, simplified version of ArcGIS for very basic mapmaking that was easy to use, but I don't remember what it was called or if it still exists.

[Smid]

You want ArcGIS or another GIS software package. They're expensive, though. You can have good functionality in R, which is open source, it's a bit of a steep learning curve, but once you get the hang of using it to manipulate shapefiles, it's actually pretty good. It also has a very welcoming and active community (#rstats on Twitter), and people are often very willing to help answer any questions you might have. Those Alberta maps I uploaded recently to the International Elections board were created in R, to give you an idea of what it can do. When is it due? I can help you with some lines of code to read the shapefiles, if you wish.

[💥💥 brandon bro (he/him/his)]

You want ArcGIS or another GIS software package. They're expensive, though. You can have good functionality in R, which is open source, it's a bit of a steep learning curve, but once you get the hang of using it to manipulate shapefiles, it's actually pretty good. It also has a very welcoming and active community (#rstats on Twitter), and people are often very willing to help answer any questions you might have. Those Alberta maps I uploaded recently to the International Elections board were created in R, to give you an idea of what it can do. When is it due? I can help you with some lines of code to read the shapefiles, if you wish.

I'll add that if you're fluent in R you can probably do what you are interested in using the ggmaps package.

[Dr. Arch]

To everyone above, thanks! It seems that ArcGIS or GIS is the response I was looking for. I'll head over to the relevant departments and see if I can get some more information.

You want ArcGIS or another GIS software package. They're expensive, though. You can have good functionality in R, which is open source, it's a bit of a steep learning curve, but once you get the hang of using it to manipulate shapefiles, it's actually pretty good. It also has a very welcoming and active community (#rstats on Twitter), and people are often very willing to help answer any questions you might have. Those Alberta maps I uploaded recently to the International Elections board were created in R, to give you an idea of what it can do. When is it due? I can help you with some lines of code to read the shapefiles, if you wish.

I'll add that if you're fluent in R you can probably do what you are interested in using the ggmaps package.

Yes, I've been working with R for over a year now, and we have used ggmaps before. I'll look into this as an additional option. Thanks!

[Crumpets]

I actually am looking for an easily editable map of the US and Canada for my timeline since we’re on the subject.

This one is MS Paint splash tool friendly. No Mexico though:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/74/North_America_blank_map_with_state_and_province_boundaries.png

[Smid]

To everyone above, thanks! It seems that ArcGIS or GIS is the response I was looking for. I'll head over to the relevant departments and see if I can get some more information.

You want ArcGIS or another GIS software package. They're expensive, though. You can have good functionality in R, which is open source, it's a bit of a steep learning curve, but once you get the hang of using it to manipulate shapefiles, it's actually pretty good. It also has a very welcoming and active community (#rstats on Twitter), and people are often very willing to help answer any questions you might have. Those Alberta maps I uploaded recently to the International Elections board were created in R, to give you an idea of what it can do. When is it due? I can help you with some lines of code to read the shapefiles, if you wish.

I'll add that if you're fluent in R you can probably do what you are interested in using the ggmaps package.

Yes, I've been working with R for over a year now, and we have used ggmaps before. I'll look into this as an additional option. Thanks!

Or even plain old ggplot() + geom_polypath() + coord_map(), you just gave to convert it from a shapefile to a dataframe first, I think.