30DayMapChallenge is daily mapping/cartography/data visualization challenge for the spatial community. It is held every year in the month of November on Twitter. There are different themes of map making for 30 days. Participants are expected to post their prepared map each day on Twitter based on a particular theme of that day with #30DayMapChallenge. Hundreds of people from different part of world participate in this event. It is not a competition but just a way to learn map making skill.
My experience
I had participated 30DayMapChallenge of last year. It was a beautiful experience and a great way to learn and improve cartography skill. Those themes of map were not familiar to me before and instantly preparing a map takes time. Everyday we were supposed to prepare and post a map which is challenging. Though I had prepared some maps in advance but it takes time and effort to make a creative map. I was able to post only six maps in that month.
Fig1: Map showing population density of Nepal 2020
It is among my favourite map that I had prepared. Raster data was used and imported in Aerialod, an open source software for visualizing elevation data. With some settings configuration and in short time map was prepared and later exported to .jpg format.
This map simply shows the population with respect to height. Greater the height of those lines greater the population. Some other maps that I had prepared in that map challenge and their guidelines of making can also be viewed from here.
Fig2: Figure with different themes of map, Source: https://github.com/tjukanovt/30DayMapChallenge
Learnings
Whenever you get involved somewhere you get to learn something out of it. Some thing that I was able to learn through that event are listed below:
Map making is not just limited to some GIS softwares like QGIS or ArcGIS. It can be done through R studio, Aerialod, web based platform like kepler.gl, python codes and in many other ways.
Map doesn't mean only as one generated through computers. A hand drawn sketch on paper, paintings on wall or cloths all with some spatial information and shape can be considered as map.
Modern maps are shifting towards graphics/ visualization. One with some good sense and skill of graphics designing can get edge over the rest.
Though webmaps are in trend these day but paper maps or one that doesn’t need coding still has a long stay.
Conclusion and Recommendation
Participating in these sort of event undoubtly helps to increase your skills. Beyond this there are also other things like #100DaysOfCode for improving coding skills. You can get engage there and work on the skill you want to improve.
I hope next time you will participate and prepare more maps than mine.
Happy mapping!
