map
cartogram
also: distorted map, proportional map, scaled cartogramMap whose areas are distorted in proportion to a variable.
Classification
- map
- maps › cartograms
- spatial; Financial Times Visual Vocabulary
Variants
Dorling cartogramcircles
Attestation and synonyms
- English definition: Brinton, Graphic Presentation, 1939↗
- distorted map; Brinton, Graphic Presentation, 1939↗
- proportional map; Brinton, Graphic Presentation, 1939↗
Scientific literature
OpenAlex: 1 647 papers since 1934, 25% in the last five years; mostly in Social Sciences, Computer Science, Agricultural and Biological Sciences; Wikidata
Seminal references
- first known use (1868) Levasseur (1868). La France, avec ses colonies; Friendly & Denis 2001
- first known use (1888) Cheysson (1888). Album de statistique graphique : accélération des voyages en France; Andrews 2017, Friendly & Denis 2001
- formalization (1934) Raisz (1934). The rectangular statistical cartogram. Geographical Review (149 citations)
- formalization (2004) Gastner & Newman (2004). Diffusion-based method for producing density-equalizing maps. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (617 citations)
R packages
- R
cartogram::cartogram_cont(); GitHub 153 stars; last commit 2025-05
Sources (40)
798 occurrences in the corpus; indexed by 11 books
Show the 40 sources
- Atlas of knowledge: anyone can map
- Better data visualizations: a guide for scholars, researchers, and wonks
- Brinton, Graphic Presentation, 1939↗
- Cartography: thematic map design
- cedricscherer.com↗
- Data points: visualization that means something
- Data visualisation: a handbook for data driven design
- Data visualization handbook
- Data visualization: a practical introduction
- Data Viz Project
- data-to-viz.com
- datavizproject.com
- datawrapper.de↗
- Design for information: an introduction to the histories, theories, and best practices ...
- Friendly & Wainer, A History of Data Visualization and Graphic Communication, Harvard University Press, 2021
- From data to viz
- Graphic presentation
- Handling and mapping geographic information
- How maps work: representation, visualization, and design
- Information graphics
- Information Graphics: A Comprehensive Illustrated Reference
- Interactive data visualization: foundations, techniques, and applications
- Milestones in the history of thematic cartography, statistical graphics, and data visua...
- Open Visualization Academy, courses and newsletter (Cairo et al.)
- python-graph-gallery.com
- Questions in Dataviz: A Design-Driven Process for Data Visualisation
- Semiology of graphics: diagrams, networks, maps
- The art of insight: how great visualization designers think
- The functional art: an introduction to information graphics and visualization
- The golden age of data visualization: how did we get here?
- The Truthful Art: Data, Charts, and Maps for Communication
- Thematic Cartography and Geovisualization
- Visualization Analysis and Design
- Visualization of Time-Oriented Data
- Visualize This
- Visualizing with text
- Wikipedia — Data and information visualization
- Wikipedia in English↗
- Wilke, Fundamentals of Data Visualization, O'Reilly, 2019
- xeno.graphics↗
Cite this entry
Stable addresshttps://dataviz.adrientaudiere.com/en-only/term/cartogram.html
ReferenceTaudière Adrien. 2026. cartogram. In Visualization Vocabulary, version 1.0.0. IdEst. https://dataviz.adrientaudiere.com/en-only/term/cartogram.html
BibTeX
@incollection{taudiere2026-cartogram,
author = {Taudière, Adrien},
title = {cartogram},
booktitle = {Visualization Vocabulary},
year = {2026},
version = {1.0.0},
publisher = {IdEst},
url = {https://dataviz.adrientaudiere.com/en-only/term/cartogram.html},
note = {CC0 1.0}
}Page created on 2026-10-13. Text last changed on 2026-11-10. Images last changed on 2026-11-10. Numbers computed on 2026-10-22.