Increase visual contrast between admin_level=4 and admin_level=2 boundaries

[jeffreyameyer]

Style change requested

Currently, it can be difficult (for my old eyes) to quickly distinguish between countries (admin_level=2) and states (admin_level=4). See this example here of the Confederate States:

browser z=4 - some contrast, but could be clearer:

browser z=6 - whoa... almost completely lost:

[jeffreyameyer]

Please don't spend a ton of time on this, per our discussion at our carto meeting, and pending #701

[vknoppkewetzel]

from call

https://www.openhistoricalmap.org/#map=6/49.139/13.821&layers=O&date=1851-01-03&daterange=1800-01-01,2023-12-31

Review Schweiz as an example. Disappearing in terrain a lil bit

[vknoppkewetzel]

using centroids points can consider also label hierarchy and changing things maybe based on area or somethin gsomething . Area has been generated for centroids data

[vknoppkewetzel]

Initial iteration comparisons in adjustments - I will tweak a little more. old country lines / labels:

new:

Upping the contrast in color, width, darkness, saturation combos is tricky as in water areas, the boundaries become severely contrasted. So, it will help a lot when we no longer have maritime boundaries.

Actually now that I thought about this, perhaps it is best to pause the iterating here until maritime boundaries can be removed.

[jeffreyameyer]

Whoa! My apologies - not sure how I missed this.

I like the new approach, but I'm wondering if we could de-emphasize the 2nd level boundaries (or maybe, both) even further. This map I came across for another purpose has a very stark contrast that I thought was interesting:

And, also agree that we may want to wait to combine with the removal of the maritime boundaries.

[vknoppkewetzel]

I think we could de-emphasize the boundaries (and I personally love finding where to de-emphasize things to remove contrast in data-heavy maps) a lot but I'll follow this up with a note on this particular design:

Comment: The above map looks to be intentionally emphasizing the symbology points and city labels as the main focus of the map, so they chose to design the map in such a way that de-emphasized the state boundaries to remove their importance but "still have them there". I will say in my opinion, these state lines were de-emphasized a little too much - the dashed pattern, light color, and thin line almost create an effect that there is something wrong with loading/data until eventually the eyes realize it is in fact a dashed pattern and not an issue. If I were to de-emphasize, I would still want it to be clear it exists and not cause this initial "cognitive confusion' :)

My question: Would OHM users want them to be de-emphasized a lot? Or should we only de-emphasize at low and mid-zooms, but ensure they are "emphasized just enough' at higher zooms where they use the boundaries as reference for adding data?

[jeffreyameyer]

The above map looks to be intentionally emphasizing the symbology points and city labels

Good point - I was so focused on the nice contrast between country and state boundaries I didn't think about that a lot. I also think I was ignoring the red clusters, because we obviously don't have those.

My question: Would OHM users want them to be de-emphasized a lot?

My response: what do you :) want the map to look like at this zoom level? What would you be psyched to show off?

My take?

• Clearer country borders
• More subdued state borders and labels
• Crisp major cities representing top 20ish MSAs