Clustered symbol maps

Here’s a map I built yesterday with Datawrapper:

This type of map is called a symbol map and it uses a technique called clustering to group points and avoid clutter in the final visualization. Thus, the visualization accounts for all 7335 US cities with a population of at least 5000 people. As you zoom in and out, the clusters adjust to account for the zoom level.

Here's a similar map that I built on Observable that illustrates the effect of clustering by allowing you to choose whether to cluster or not:

It's not exactly trivial to build maps programmatically like this. you can click below the map where it says D3 Supercluster Map to view the Javascript code that creates the map.

Datawrapper makes easy work of this, though! Why don't you build a map for your state? You can get the city data from this drop down menu:

I'll show you how!!

Scroll to Top