Mapping Demographic Data

Do I need geospatial data?

QGIS screenshot of the maps underlying data table

Social Explorer screen recording of exporting a map as a .PNG

Example census map that required downloading the data Map created from the PointsUnknown tutorial series, a great way to get started learning how to make maps.

Planning ahead

Photograph of the Harvard Map Collections

Getting started in ten minutes activity

  1. Set up a Social Explorer account with your Harvard Key by choosing Create Accountand then log in.
  2. Under Explore Maps navigate to United States and select Explore.
  3. Change data to Housing > Tenure > Renter Occupied.
  4. Change the geographic unit from State to Census Block Groups.
  5. Zoom in to Cambridge, MA and generate an image by clicking the Export as image button in the upper right-hand corner.
  6. In the left-hand menu, click Tables > American Community Surveys (5 year estimates) and under 2015-2019 select Begin Report.
  7. Try to figure out how you would download the source data you were just looking at in the interactive visualization.
  8. Now, in order to make a map, you need the shape data. In the left-hand menu, click Geodata. Which file would you download?
  9. What are your next steps? How would you combine these two datasets together, in order to create a map?
  10. Next steps: