Mapping Data using SAS and Excel
Download | Exercise | Evaluation
Creation date: 08/06/98
Author: Karl Ho
In this workshop, we will cover displaying data on a map to analyze distribution of one
or more variables by geographic region. This may be presenting the population
distribution among all the world countries, occurrence of violation of human rights on
continental Asia or poverty level in different Texas counties. To illustrate
such distributions, the researcher needs to determine the unit of analysis and the scale
of the variable(s) to be charted.
In this workshop, we introduce the two available tools on UNT campus in creating the maps:
Excel and SAS.
Data Exposition Using Excel
Creating map (mapws1.xls)
You can create a map to analyze sales or market research by geographic region in Excel (97 onwards). Excel contains an add-on module from a Microsoft product called Microsoft Map. Excel carries some of the basic functions from the Microsoft map, allowing users to create World map, United States maps, etc., provided the user have the map data on a spreadsheet. An Excel workbook, mapstats.xls, supplies the data sheet containing certain demographic variables for creating maps. The workbook comes with the names of the unit of analysis and 1994 data for the following geographic groups/countries:
To create an Excel map, arrange the variables in columns on a worksheet according to geographic data, such as names of countries or states, provided by Excel like:
To create the map on your worksheet, select the cell range, and then click the Map button. Excel automatically identifies the geographic variable name, GEONAME, and map the variable of interest accordingly. You can have control over the variable to be mapped, type of maps (gray or color) and plot the level of the variable using the Map Control box:
You can add labels to map features, such as countries and even create sets of custom
labels to mark important locations on a map. You can perform analysis or get the look you
want for a presentation by displaying different columns of data from the worksheet in the
map. You can also specify a format for the data, such as dot density or graduated
symbol.To change the data displayed in the map, drag a column heading button to the box in
the Microsoft Map Control dialog box. Then drag a format button next to the column name.
To change the options for a map format, double-click the format and column heading listed
in the box.
World Map
Data Exposition Using SAS
SAS is equipped with two modules, GRAPH and GIS, that generate static and interactive maps from various levels from world maps to local shopping malls in a US county.
Texas Map 1
Texas Map 2
texas.sas - SAS program to generate the maps
merge.zip - zipped SAS data set
Last updated: 02/28/06 by Karl Ho
