I was recently reading David Mintz's excellent SESUG 2018 conference paper on Five Crazy Good Visualizations and How to Plot Them, and saw a map that caught my eye. David showed how to create a similar map, but with completely different data - I decided to try creating a map that was a bit more like the original. Follow along, as I demonstrate how...

Original Map

The original map that David referenced was from a NY Times article, and the he liked that it had mouse-over text so you could see the details about each county. Here's a screen-capture:

My Map

And here is a screen-capture of my version, I created with SAS. (Click here to see the interactive version, where you can mouse-over each county to see the details.)

How'd He Do That?

For those of you who are programmers, or who like to plot data on a map, here are below are the details...

Finding the Data

I didn't use the exact same data as the NY Times, but I found a source that provided data in 3 of the areas. Here's a link to the USDA Economic Research Service page where you can download 3 spreadsheets with data on unemployment, education, and poverty.

Preparing the Data

I imported each spreadsheet into SAS, sorted by the variable of interest, and then assigned a rank. Here's some sample code for poverty:

proc import out=poverty datafile="PovertyEstimates.xls" dbms=xls replace;
range='Poverty Data 2017$A4:K0';
getnames=yes;
run;

proc sort data=poverty out=poverty;
by Poverty;
run;
data poverty; set poverty;
poverty_rank=_n_;
run;

I combined/joined the three datasets with SQL, combined the three ranks (giving each one equal weight), and then assigned an overall rank based on the combined values.

data my_data; set my_data;
combined=(poverty_rank+education_rank+unemployment_rank);
run;

proc sort data=my_data out=my_data;
by combined;
run;
data my_data; set my_data;
overall_rank=_n_;
run;

Here's what the resulting data looks like:

Drawing the Map

I used the code below to draw the final graph. Here are a few important things about the code:

• Notice that I use the title to describe exactly what is being plotted (the original map's "Hardest Places to Live" is a bit vague).
• I also gave the footnote a link to the data source (in the interactive version).
• I annotated the white state outline onto the county map, similar to the original.
• I use a note, rather than a title2, so that text can share/overlap into what would otherwise be the map's space.
• And I used the html= option to add the mouse-over text for each county.

title1 ls=1.5 "Ranking the US Counties";

footnote
   link='https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/county-level-data-sets/download-data/'
   c=gray "Data source: USDA Economic Research Service (2019 snapshot)";

proc gmap data=my_data map=my_map all anno=anno_outline;
id statecode county;
note move=(29,89.5) h=16pt "Based on: Poverty, Education, and Unemployment";
choro overall_rank / levels=7 legend=legend1
   cdefault=gray99 coutline=graycc
   html=my_html;
run;

Here's a link to the interactive version of the map. And if you'd like to see all the nitty-gritty details, here's a link to the full SAS code.