Python Maps

I’ve had to dust off Python skills together with learning R as part of my postgrad course. It has been a while since I’ve had to code anything in anger but it’s a pleasure to be able to pick up projects from GitHub and play with them or reverse engineer them to understand methods. I’m a big fan of scripting, particularly with work flows as it then allows me to make better mistakes elsewhere.

A project I came across recently which unites Python and GIS is Ankur Gupta’s map project which is focused on generating aesthetically styled map posters from geographic data. It fetches geographic data (OpenStreetMap) and processes it with mapping libraries such as OSMnx and matplotlib.

It’s well documented and focused on aesthetics versus functionality but might be interesting if you care about aesthetics and engaging readers of your work.