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markmarkoh / datamaps

Customizable SVG map visualizations for the web in a single Javascript file using D3.js
http://datamaps.github.io
MIT License
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county-level state maps: resources? #239

Open mg1075 opened 8 years ago

mg1075 commented 8 years ago

Sorry if this is not really an issue with datamaps per se, but I figured folks here would have already run across this issue. The issue is: for USA county-level maps by state (not a map of the entire USA), is there by now an easy resource for files, with MIT license, for each state? Or when people need these maps, do they always have to make them on their own? Apparently this process of making topojson files is not so straightforward for a Windows user, so if someone could point in the right direction, it would be much appreciated.

rbryn commented 8 years ago

I can help you with that. I created a series for a project we were working on at USDA-APHIS. I went through the process of creating county maps per state (we broke them down by state for performance reasons). I would be more than happy to provide them. They can be pulled as s single zip file from https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B4wLP6-nA856UWp3RUJLVUlfd00/view?usp=sharing

And here is an example of the final product in use https://www.aphis.usda.gov/wps/portal/aphis/ourfocus/animalhealth/sa_animal_disease_information/sa_avian_health/ct_avian_influenza_disease/?1dmy&urile=wcm%3apath%3a%2Faphis_content_library%2Fsa_our_focus%2Fsa_animal_health%2Fsa_animal_disease_information%2Fsa_avian_health%2Fsa_detections_by_states%2Fct_ai_pacific_flyway

mg1075 commented 8 years ago

@rbryn - Hey, that sounds really interesting!

Three questions:

  1. Have you considered making a github repository for all the files?
  2. Could they be distributed under the MIT license?
  3. Did you ever have the scenario where you need to show not a single state but rather a region of a handful of contiguous states - e.g., Utah, Colorado, and Wyoming all together?
rbryn commented 8 years ago

Those state county files are considered license free, they were built from public domain census data by a Federal employee for use in a public project and would fall under "works by the US federal government" which are automatically part of the public domain in the US as stipulated by http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap1.html#105

One of these days I'll get caught up and submit a request to @markmarkoh for inclusion of these into the datamaps project.

mg1075 commented 8 years ago

Looks like USDA links have changed.