Counties and Unitary Authorities in the UK

The UK can be subdivided in many different ways and the plugin is not able offer all of them. However, with the Pro version we can include custom geojson map sources to generate the maps. That’s what we did here to get the map of  Counties and Unitary Authorities in the UK.

We used a dataset from the Open Geography Portal, provided by the Office for National Statistics. We then used some of the tools available to make the map compatible with the plugin. This is the generated geojson file.

Iberian Peninsula Map

The Pro version of the plugin allows you to combine different maps, so you could have maps of countries divided by regions combined with their neighbouring countries. In this example we create a map of both Portugal and Spain and combine it in a single map, using the overlay feature.



In this particular example, since both countries have islands that are far from the mainland, the map seems a bit zoomed out. If you only need to display the mainland regions, you could setup a different initial zoom.

Using Custom Maps

The plugin allows you to use custom geoJSON files to create your maps. I have created a custom map for the Iberian Peninsula map using QGIS software and moved the islands closer to the mainland and merged both maps together. I hosted the source file on github so anyone case use them. This is the resulting map below.



This representation of the map has the advantage of having the islands closer and therefore the viewport for map doesn’t make the mainland portion so zoomed out. The disadvantage is that the coordinates for the locations of the islands are not the correct ones and therefore you would need to use different coordinates if you need to add markers.

If you have any question related with this map feel free to contact us or leave a comment below.

Creating COVID-19 Heat Map for Specific Countries

If you’re using the plugin to create maps for individual countries with data about the new coronavirus (COVID-19), here are some tips on how to do it.

Portugal confirmed cases by municipalities

March 26 2020

Updated on March 26th, 14:00
Municipalities with less than 3 cases are not included

March 25 2020

Updated on March 25th, 21:00
Data only represents ~50% of total confirmed cases.


Getting the data

The data available might not be formatted the way you want. If you’re displaying a small country with a small number of regions, you can add the data manually to each region. In the example above for Portugal, the data is released in a table in PDF format, so it’s not available to be used directly by the plugin. I first needed to convert that data into JSON and then use it as a custom data source for the map. Consider the id property of your JSON entries, should match either the real region ID or the name. The plugin won’t be able to recognize entries that don’t match either.

I wrote a couple of other articles on how to use external data sources to feed the map automatically, but this will require javascript knowledge.

Creating the Map

Once you know where you’ll get the data from and have selected the map, you can create it. Here are some links that will help:

If you have any question feel free to leave a comment below or contact me.