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I see maps with all kind of statistics (gdp, population density, rain, exports, happiness) on the internet all the time. Usually they're only outlines (so they have no roads or buildings or whatever) because what matters is the colour indicating the presented statistic's level.

I can draw something like that, of course, but I can't believe all those people are doing it by hand. They have data sources, they have blank vector(?) maps, and they surely must use some software that connects the two using a chosen type of presentation (colours, etc). But this is something I've found it very hard to web search for, because the keywords I can think of are too generic. I've found links to GIS software but no explanation of how it can be used to connect data to maps, nor where to find the maps themselves (surely folks aren't drawing them and the country/region/council borders by hand). I don't even know if GIS software is what people use for the purpose (it looks both overkill and low-level to me).

Can anyone provide me with some specific information?

edit: this isn't, as reported, a question 'seeking product, service, or learning material recommendations' that 'become outdated quickly and attract opinion-based answers'. Instead, it's a description of the 'situation and the specific problem' as indicated: I'm not asking for recommendations, I'm asking how this kind of problem is generally solved.

There is an answer below that does exemplify how the problem is solved with recourse to a specific product, but that's beside the point.

edit: I've since found a similar, but more specific, question Creating map of countries colored using country statistics. For some reason it didn't show up in my original queries. It focuses on tools for 'map charting' - it appears to corroborate that that's the name of the field.

entonio
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  • add some example links to your question – jdwolf Nov 21 '17 at 11:58
  • I would bet on ArcGIS or something similar. It has _a lot_ of tools for statistics and data visualization. – u1686_grawity Nov 21 '17 at 12:02
  • I suspect the closure reason focuses on "learning material" rather than "product recommendation". "How things work" questions are often not a great fit for the site because they tend to be broad or nebulously defined; there may not be just a single approach, or the depth of "responsive" answers could range from uselessly superficial to encyclopedic. Acquiring general knowledge, rather than solving a specific actual problem, is often considered out of scope for the site. – fixer1234 Nov 22 '17 at 18:47
  • @fixer1234 you make a good point. My problem here is that I'm assuming there's a field of knowledge here, on which I need to get information, but haven't been successful in identifying how to look for it, so I'm not finding relevant results, and I see little option other than ask the public 'do you have expertise on this? how is it called and how do I find resources?'. E.g. I once had to look up how to do draw some lines for a specific purpose and had no idea where to: google won't understand my description, but people will. Someone told me the field was called 'ray tracing', and that did it. – entonio Nov 23 '17 at 15:07

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Creating map chart is really a basic capacility now, even Excel can do it

If you're interested in more, just Google for "map chart" and your favourite tool's name.

Many of the tools has their own embedded maps, if you need more, the most wildly used format is ESRI shapefile.

Máté Juhász
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  • Thanks, this does certainly explain how people do a lot of it nowadays (I'm still curious about how it was done before, it's a recent feature in Excel). – entonio Nov 22 '17 at 13:38
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    I didn't meant Excel is a common tool for that. I meant nowadays even spreadsheet applications may do it. There are a lot of tools which can do it (at first it was GIS tools, but now all good visualization / analysis software can do it too (Spotfire, Vortex, JMP, SAS ...) – Máté Juhász Nov 22 '17 at 14:10