COORDINATE SYSTEMS AND MAP PROJECTIONS
Assignment 2
INTRODUCTION
The goal of this assignment is for you to learn about different coordinate systems and map projections and to become more familiar with manipulating data frames and layouts. There are also a few questions asked along the way to ensure you are completing the tasks and understand what is being asked of you. Details on submission are at the bottom of the page, but remember you only need to submit a digital copy.
ArcGIS Help: If you need help, have a look at the Mapping and Visualization and Applying Symbology section in ArcGIS help. Part of becoming a proficient GIS user involves learning to find information in manuals and “help” files. You are encouraged to look through the course text, the electronic manuals, and online help to figure out how to complete some steps in this assignment and to answer the questions.
EVALUATION
This assignment will be marked out of 25, will be worth 15% of your final mark, and is due in one week, at 10 am on Tuesday May 26th. The data you will need are located on quercus.
TASK
Enter your answers in an MS Word document to be submitted online via quercus. You need to create a set of four maps on one page that show a progression of map scales from small to large, starting with the world, then Canada, then Ontario, and then the Greater Toronto Area (GTA). Each map will include the main geographic area for that map (e.g., the map of Canada will show all of Canada) as well as highlighting in some way the region that is the subject of the map at the next largest scale (e.g., the map of the world will highlight Canada, the map of Canada will highlight Ontario, and so on).
Specifications:
For the whole map, include: frame line, title, data sources, authorship. For each of the four maps, include: neatline; a caption underneath that specifies the projection used and the scale formatted as an absolute scale; include a graticule on all maps except the GTA map. On the map of Canada, include an extent indicator rectangle based on the extent of the Ontario map, and on the Ontario map, include an extent indicator based on the extent of the GTA map. Do not include a legend on any of the maps (you will not lose marks for excluding this element). Be sure to employ the same principles of map design (e.g., visual hierarchy, contrast) that you used on your previous assignment. Use the following projection for each map:
World: Robinson (World), but set the central meridian to 100 degrees west.
Canada: Canada Lambert Conformal Conic
Ontario: Canada Albers Equal Area Conic, set the central meridian to 85 degrees west and the standard parallels to 45 degrees and 53 degrees.
GTA: NAD 1983 UTM Zone 17N
The map must use a layout for an 81⁄2” x 11” sheet of paper. When you are ready to submit your finished map, export the map as a png, jpeg or tiff image at a resolution of at least 200 dpi.
Data sources: ESRI Inc., Statistics Canada, 2016.
EXERCISE
Start ArcMap, and add the Countries and Graticule data files (from the World folder) to your map. Right‐click the Countries feature class and select Properties and then the Symbology tab. On the left, select Categories — Unique values and then select COUNTRY as the Value Field and click on Add All Values. Change the color of the graticule to Gray 50%.
Make sure that the Graticule layer is displayed under the Countries layer, which creates the effect that the two feature classes are on different visual levels (i.e., the continents appear to be sitting on top of the graticule). This technique is called stereogrammic hierarchical organization, and can be used to indicate to a
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map reader which features are more important than others (i.e., they should focus their attention on the continents more than the graticule).
Note the spacing of the meridians and parallels. Right‐click on the data frame (called Layers in the table of contents), select Properties, and then the Coordinate System tab.
Question 1:
What coordinate system is used? What does this mean? 2 Marks
Click the + sign to the left of the Projected Coordinate Systems folder, find the World folder, and open it. You will see a coordinate system called Mercator (world). Select it, and click Apply. A warning box may appear (or may not). Click the Yes button. Now click the Ok button, and click Yes again. Click the Full Extent button on the toolbar to zoom the data window to show the full extent of the map.
Question 2:
What map property or properties does this projection preserve? 1 Mark
Question 3:
Upon which developable surface is this projection based? 1 Mark
Note that this projection uses Greenwich as its prime meridian. Go back and change the coordinate system to Robinson (world).
Question 4:
What property or properties does this projection preserve? 1 Mark
Right‐click Layers, and select the General tab, and ensure the units displayed is decimal degrees, and click Ok. If a warning appears, click Yes (for the rest of this lab, click Yes when that message appears). Notice that the coordinate display in the lower right is decimal degrees. Use the coordinate display to find 100° West longitude.
Right‐click Layers, and select Properties — Coordinate System and double click on the World Robinson projection. Now change the central meridian to 100° West longitude (the units are degrees, but you do not need to enter the units). Click Ok twice.
Question 5:
What effect does changing the central meridian to 100° West longitude have on your map? 1 Mark
Now go back into the symbology tab and change all the colours of the counties to one colour. Add the Canada layer and make Canada visible on the map of the world.
In the layout view, change the page to landscape orientation, and adjust the size of your data frame so that it is 10cm wide and 7.5cm high (Hint: when in doubt, right‐click on something). Place the frame in the upper left portion of the page, so that the map is 2.5cm from the top of the page, and 2.5cm from the left edge of the page. Set the scale to display its full extent. (1 inch is approximately 2.5cm)
On the main menu, select Insert — Data Frame. You now have a new, empty data frame that can be used to create a second map on the same page. Notice that the name of the data frame is shown in boldface in the table of contents, which means it is the active frame. Now switch to the data view. When you switch to the data view, you will see the data inside whichever frame is active at the time. Since this frame is empty, your data view is blank. If you want to switch back to the previous data frame right click on it and click activate.
Click on the name Layers in the table of contents, pause, and then click it again and rename the data frame “World”. Now rename the other, empty data frame, to “Canada”. Now add the Canada data layer to the
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Canada data frame, and add the same graticule data set used in the World data frame. Now change the projection to Canada Lambert Conformal Conic.
Question 6:
Upon which developable surface is this projection based? 1 Mark
Question 7:
What are the standard parallels for this projection? What do standard parallels represent? If you wanted to minimize distortion at the border between the Northwest Territories and Saskatchewan, what might you do to the standard parallels? 2 Marks
In Layout view, change the dimensions of the Canada data frame to match those of the World frame. Place the map so that it is exactly 2.5cm from the top and right edges of the page. Set the scale of the Canada map to 1:66,000,000 and center the country in the data frame. On the Symbology tab, set the Value to Population and the Normalization field to AreaKM2 and choose an appropriate colour ramp. (What the normalization does is it acts as a division symbol – so you now have population/sq km). Make the graticule match the one in your World data frame.
Question 8:
What does your map of Canada now show? 1 Mark
Create a new data frame, named Ontario, and load the Ontario and Graticule feature class. Zoom to the extents of the Ontario layer. Use the same frame dimensions as the other frames, and align the frame so that it is placed in the lower left of the page, 2.5cm from the bottom and left edges. Set the projection to Canada Albers Equal Area Conic. Note the orientation of the graticule lines. Now change the central meridian to 85 degrees West (ignore any error messages) and standard parallels to 45 degrees north and 53 degrees north. Set the scale of the Ontario map to 1:25,000,000 and center the province in the data frame. Right‐click on the Canada data frame, select Properties and the Extent Indicators tab. Select the Ontario data frame, and click the “>” button. Click the Frame button, and change the thickness of the border to 1.5, and the color of the border to Mars Red. Click Ok.
While still in layout view, make sure the Ontario data frame is activated and use the Zoom In tool on the main toolbar (not the layout toolbar) to zoom in to show just the Toronto region. Notice that the red shape in the Canada map has changed to reflect the change in the Ontario map. Now zoom out again to an appropriate extent so that the entire province is visible and the extent on the Canada map is visible.
Question 9:
What does the extent rectangle indicate, and why might you use this feature? 1 Mark
Now add the GTA file and ensure Ontario and GTA are in different colours. Also add any remaining data necessary for the Ontario map and select appropriate colours.
For the final map, we are actually going to create a new shapefile that is already projected rather than manipulating the projection within ArcGIS. For this open your arc toolbox.
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Then navigate to the project tool (Data Management tools – Projections and Transformations – Project)
Open the tool and add your GTA shapefile into the input feature class. Save your output feature class onto your key with the other lab data. Select the projection to NAD 1983 UTM Zone 17N.
Create a fourth data frame, name it GTA, and load the GTA_project feature class. Now Use the same frame dimensions as the other frames, and align the frame so that it is placed in the lower right of the page, 2.5cm from the bottom and right edges. Set the map scale to 1:1,500,000. Add an extent rectangle for the GTA to the Ontario map.
Question 10:
How is the project tool different than changing the properties like you did on the first 3 maps? 1 Mark
Insert the north arrow in the lower right of the GTA data frame. If the Data Frame Tools toolbar is not already visible, select Customize — Toolbars — Data Frame Tools. Use the Rotate Data Frame tool to rotate the data so that the top of the city is parallel with the top of the data frame. Note that both the north arrow and extent
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rectangle in the Ontario map update automatically. Add any other necessary data and select appropriate colours.
Question 11:
Out of the four maps on the page, why is this map the only one where it makes sense to include a north arrow? 1 Mark
Insert one neatline for the page.
Using a font of your choice, add an appropriate caption just below each data frame, add a title for the entire map series (i.e., for the page), and add your name and data source. Export your map when you have completed the assignment and are happy with the map. Your map will be marked for presentation as well as content (2 marks for each of the four maps, plus 4 marks for the entire page).
Note: you do not need to include a legend, north arrow or data source on these maps (except for the north arrow on the map of the GTA). Do include scale as absolute on each map.
WHAT TO HAND IN?
One MS Word document with your answers to the questions and your one page map showing the 4 different scales.
HOW TO SUBMIT
Submit your map and answers to your questions via quercus as one Microsoft Word document (either .doc or docx format) that contains all content to be graded. To include maps in your Word file, export your layout from ArcMap as a png, jpeg or tiff file (with a resolution of at least 200 dpi) and insert it as a picture. Your assignments will be marked online and a graded version of your assignment will be posted on quercus when the marking is completed.
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