Özet:

From past to present, maps have been one of the most fundamental visualization tools not only in academic geography researches, but also in geography education and training. Today, data flow in different areas and in vast amounts brings thematic maps to the forefront as a tool of visualization. As a type of thematic map, area cartograms are significant tools of visualization for quantitative data in geography. Area cartograms can be defined as a type of thematic map in which dimension or distance is scaled according to a variable other than the dimension and distance of the earth's surface. Units like countries, states/provinces and cities are displayed in proportion to their surface areas in traditional thematic maps like choropleth, chorochromatic, dot, proportional symbol and flow maps, whereas the same areas are displayed in proportion to the size of the data intended to be displayed in cartograms. In this way, size of the surface area is prevented from dominating the map regardless of the distribution of the depicted spatial data and also from distorting the visual perception of the map-reader. This is the most important feature separating area cartograms from other thematic maps. Another important feature of area cartograms is that each unit represented on the base map is indicated with the real value of the selected data set on the cartogram. Since there is no data classification in cartogram mapping technique as in other thematic mapping techniques, there is also no lost data problem. Area cartograms, which were started to be used as a tool of visualization in the newspapers, magazines and textbooks as of the late 19th century, began to be used in academic geography studies following the second half of the 20th century. It is seen that cartograms can be effectively used rather in human geography studies. The reason behind that is spatial data is needed to use cartogram mapping technique. It appears that the research areas where cartograms are most commonly used are population and electoral geography, even though they are used in almost every research field in human geography. In this article, the issue of how area cartograms, as a type of thematic map, can be used in geographical researches is illustrated through examples.

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