Cartographer's Toolkit

The New York Times published a map of flooding along the Mississippi and Ohio rivers that is quite nice. Of note is the scale bar at the top which is unlike any I’ve ever seen. It is simply a thick black line with “50 miles” written right-justified underneath. There are no ending marks along the line. A very simple construct that works just fine. One small issue in the map is the leader lines, of which there are two, that point to items on the map that require further explanation. These leader lines are the same color and almost the same weight as the state lines and thus can be confused. This is a minor point as the rest of the features work well together. The colors are muted and logical and the extreme vertical nature of the map is not cumbersome as it could have been. Overall a very nice map graphic.

Flooding Along the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers