Hexviz

Link

Save

Only the HexJSON format can be reloaded in this tool for further editing.

Options

CSV URL

This can also be a Google Sheet. It must be publicly accessible.

Layout URL

If the CSV doesn't contain q and r columns, provide a HexJSON file here.

Colour scale

Colour by

Labels

Tooltips

Hexagon borders?

Notes

The aim of this tool is to visualise data on a hex cartogram. The data can either be in a CSV file, a simple Google Sheet*, or a HexJSON file. The URL must be publicly accessible and CORS will need to be enabled on the remote server (otherwise this page can't access the data).

Options

CSVs

If you provide a CSV it should contain a column with the heading id that uniquely identifies each hexagon. Other columns will be added as extra properties of each hexagon. Each row will be a specific hex in the final map.

Hexagon layout

To show your data we need to know where each hexagon should go. There are three ways you could do this:

If your data contains IDs that look like codes for UK local authorities, UK Parliamentary constituencies, UK NUTS3 regions, UK Upper Tier Local Authorities, MSOAs, NHS Integrated Care Boards, UK wards (2022 - under development), or US States, we will try to load a pre-existing HexJSON layout. For example, this Google Sheet contains 2022 ward codes which get detected and an appropriate layout loaded.
You could make your own HexJSON layout with our hex builder tool.
You could add q (column) and r (row) columns to your data to explicitly set your coordinates for each hexagon. These will be interpreted as an odd-r layout; pointy-topped hexes where odd-numbered rows shift to the right.

Colours

Hexagons can be coloured by any numeric column in your data. For instance, if your CSV file contains a column titled Population you could choose this attribute and set the colour scale to Viridis. The range will be calculated from the data and rounded to "nicer" values. These colour scales are available:

Exporting the map

Use the menu to export the map in one of four ways:

HexJSON - This creates a text file representation of your data and hex layout.
SVG - This will save the image as a scalable vector graphic.
PNG - This will save the map as an image that you can use elsewhere. It is useful for screenshots.
GeoJSON - A cartogram is not geographic but some people have requested "geographic formats" so they can use these hex cartograms with specific GIS software. To make it "geographic" we've done a very simple projection at Null Island (0°, 0°) keeping the result to approximately 0.1°×0.1° to try to reduce distortions.

If you output as anything other than HexJSON, you won't be able to load it back into this tool.

* The Google Sheet must be public and very straightforward. It must consist of one Sheet with a basic table starting in the first cell. There should be one header row at the top. It shouldn't contain rows that aren't the header or the data.