Best state

Of all of the best state questions I would have to say that the map scale and this one are the hardest:
4. Choose 5 key characteristics and how to map them in your state.
Why is each map the ideal for the characteristic?

For this one, what you want to do is take any of those characterisitcs you chose and then think about which map stle would go best for it. For weather, for example, an isoline map would work best. This map style links areas together based off of a common value. So if you want to know which area has a weather temperature value of 70 degrees, an isoline map will show you. It will draw a line around the area that has a 70 degree temp. For crime a dot map might be best. You want to know exactly where crimes occur and with what frequency. A dot map places a dot down on a map for each time (or in some times a dot will be placed down based off of a certain value - one dot for every one hundred cases or crimes or whatever). If you want to know how the people in an area vote in general, you probably need a formal region in a choropleth map. These types of maps show a region as a whole and mark a color for each region based off of how dominant that trait is. For example a state that votes democrat will get a blue color and a republican state a red color. You could do the same thing with counties. You could do this with income or other features and a choropleth map would tell you how dominant the feature is throughout an entire region. For example, if you were looking at income, you could have darker red regions for weathier counties and lighter red for less wealthy counties. Examples of all of these map styles can be found in the galleries.