Volume 41 - Article 17 | Pages 477–490  

Geofaceting: Aligning small-multiples for regions in a spatially meaningful way

By Ilya Kashnitsky, Jose Manuel Aburto

This article is part of the Special Collection 29 "Data Visualization"

Abstract

Background: Creating visualizations that include multiple dimensions of the data while preserving spatial structure and readability is challenging. Here we demonstrate the use of geofaceting to meet this challenge.

Objective: Using data on young adult mortality in the 32 Mexican states from 1990 to 2015, we demonstrate how aligning small multiples for territorial units, often regions, according to their approximate geographical location – geofaceting – can be used to depict complex multi-dimensional phenomena.

Methods: The idea is to align small-multiples for territorial units, often regions, according to approximate geographical location. We illustrate the technique using data on young adult mortality in the 32 Mexican states from 1990 to 2015.

Results: Geofaceting reveals the macro-level spatial pattern while preserving the flexibility of choosing any visualization techniques for the small multiples. Creating geofaceted visualizations gives all the advantages of standard plots in which one can adequately display multiple dimensions of a dataset.

Contribution: Compared to other ways of small-multiples' arrangement, geofaceting improves the speed of regions' identification and exposes the broad spatial pattern.

Author's Affiliation

• Ilya Kashnitsky - Danmarks Statistik, Denmark EMAIL
• Jose Manuel Aburto - London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, United Kingdom EMAIL

Other articles by the same author/authors in Demographic Research

How lifespan and life years lost equate to unity
Volume 50 - Article 24

Subnational contribution to life expectancy and life span variation changes: Evidence from the United States
Volume 50 - Article 22

Mortality inequalities at retirement age between migrants and non-migrants in Denmark and Sweden
Volume 50 - Article 18

Dynamics of the coefficient of variation of the age at death distribution
Volume 49 - Article 38

Leveraging deep neural networks to estimate age-specific mortality from life expectancy at birth
Volume 47 - Article 8

Divergent trends in lifespan variation during mortality crises
Volume 46 - Article 11

Outsurvival as a measure of the inequality of lifespans between two populations
Volume 44 - Article 35

Mexican mortality 1990‒2016: Comparison of unadjusted and adjusted estimates
Volume 44 - Article 30

Lexis fields
Volume 42 - Article 24

The threshold age of the lifetable entropy
Volume 41 - Article 4

Similar articles in Demographic Research

The persistent southern disadvantage in US early life mortality, 1965‒2014
Volume 42 - Article 11    | Keywords: early life health, geographic disparities, homicide, mortality, motor vehicle accidents, U.S. South

Estimating mortality from external causes using data from retrospective surveys: A validation study in Niakhar (Senegal)
Volume 38 - Article 32    | Keywords: data quality, external causes of death, homicide, injuries, mortality, road traffic accidents, Senegal, suicide