About the workshop
Canadian Census of Population provides a detailed statistical portrait of Canada and its people by their demographic, social and economic characteristics. Making thematic maps drawn on Census data is an effective way to reveal hidden spatial patterns in the data.
This workshop will cover two very practical skill areas for GIS learners: finding Canadian Census data that is accessible to university researchers and mapping it using QGIS software. This workshop will guide you through tips for mapping large amounts of census data quickly and for working with spatial patterns and relationships among census variables.
If you wish to learn these skills on your own time instead of attending a live workshop, consult this library guide How to map Canadian Census data.
Canadian Census of Population provides a detailed statistical portrait of Canada and its people by their demographic, social and economic characteristics. Making maps based on Census data can help bring hidden patterns visible.
In this workshop, we will use a combination of tools – Censusmapper.ca, R, and QGIS – to leverage the advantages of each tool: Censusmapper for a quick and easy way to visualize various variables of Census data, R for programmatically downloading and manipulating Census data, and QGIS (a free and open-source GIS program) for tweaking map symbology and creating a decent-looking map. This workshop is perfect for anyone who has basic R knowledge and wishes to map Census data without diving too deeply into a GIS program.
Learning objectives
- Learn to use Censusmapper
- Learn to download census geography for Canada and extract BC
- Learn to prepare census data in R
- Create final map with standard cartographic elements in QGIS
No prior GIS experience is required.
Software
- You need to install QGIS on your device prior to attending the workshop. QGIS runs on Linux, Windows and Mac operating systems. To download QGIS, please visit https://qgis.org/en/site/forusers/download.html.
- You also need to install the latest versions of R and RStudio prior to attending the workshop.