[Jake Mortenson]

Hi Michael Stepner, thank you for creating this resource. I am trying create a U.S. state map with the values of the variable I am mapping placed in or near the states (do not need state name, only the value of the variable). Is there a guide to doing that?

The data I am using has 51 values, one for each state + DC, with only three variables: state name, state fips, and the variable of interest. This code produces the graph without the labels:

maptile var, geo(state) geoid(state) fcolor(BuYlRd) nq(6) leg(1)

I believe I need to merge on a file with state coordinates, and use spopt to specify the x and y coordinates, but I wondered if you could point me to any code that does this or an example? Thanks, again.

[Michael Stepner]

Hi Jake Mortenson, you're on the right track! I haven't done this myself, so I don't have any code to point you to. But your plan to use spopt() with the label_suboptions of spmap is the right way to do it.

You could create a dataset with the labels you want to use and the lat/lon coordinates you want to place them at. Then you'll need to transform the lat/lon coordinates into x,y coordinates using the same transformation that I've used to generate the state map template. You can grab that from the state Source Files zip on the maptile website: check out reshape_us.do within the zip file. Then construct your spopt() argument appropriately.

[Jake Mortenson]

Great, thanks!

[Jake Mortenson]

OK, hopefully not too many more follow-ups, but am running into a strange issue. Here is the code I have run:

  use DIRECTORY/ado/personal/maptile_geographies/state_coords_clean, clear
               
                bysort _ID: egen x=median(_X)
                bysort _ID: egen y=median(_Y)
               
                collapse (lastnm) x y,by(_ID)
               
                preserve
               
                                use DIRECTORY/ado/personal/maptile_geographies/state_database_clean, clear
                               
                                keep statefips _polygonid
                               
                                rename _polygonid _ID
                               
                                save DIRECTORY/ado/personal/maptile_geographies/state_id_fips, replace
                               
                restore
               
                merge 1:1 _ID using DIRECTORY/ado/personal/maptile_geographies/state_id_fips, update replace nogen
               
                * this file contains state, statefips, and VAR (variable of interest)
                merge 1:1 statefips using data/MYDATA, update replace nogen            
               
                replace VAR=round(VAR*100,0.1)
               
                * center the labels on the state
                * al
                replace x=x+0.75 if statefips==1
                replace y=y+2 if statefips==1
               
                * ak
                replace x=x+0.5 if statefips==2
                replace y=y+3 if statefips==2
              
                keep x y state VAR
 
                #delimit;
                maptile VAR, geo(state) geoid(state) legd(1)  nq(5)
                                spopt(
                                                label(xcoord(x) ycoord(y) size(small) label(diff))
                                                );

When I run this, I get an error associated with the maptile command:

.1" "2552360 invalid name

When I include an fcolor() option (e.g. Blues), it runs, but does not process the fcolor, saying it is not found in class color. Any idea what I am doing wrong?

[Jake Mortenson]

[Uninstalled and re-installed maptile and the geostate geographies, and the problem went away.]

OK, no more posts from me with questions, next post will contain the code I used to add the labels.

[Michael Stepner]

Jake Mortenson: Sounds like you had a busy day and debugged all the issues you encountered. I'm looking forward to seeing the fruits of your labors!

[Jake Mortenson]

OK, the code I used to center the labels is below, along with the resulting picture. I generated simulated data as a starting point, and others should be able to run the code once they specify their Stata directory.

My approach for centering the labels on the states was very rudimentary and labor-intensive. I think a centroid can be calculated when reshaping the files using shp2dta, which would presumably make much of the small manual adjustments unnecessary. Any idea how to do that?

* sample code to place labels on states using maptile 
* Jake Mortenson

cap log close
clear all
set more off
local direct="YOUR-STATA-DIRECTORY"
cd `direct'

    
use ado/personal/maptile_geographies/state_coords_clean, clear
    
    bysort _ID: egen x=median(_X)
    bysort _ID: egen y=median(_Y)
    
collapse (lastnm) x y,by(_ID)
    
    preserve
    
        use ado/personal/maptile_geographies/state_database_clean, clear
        
        keep statefips _polygonid
        
        rename _polygonid _ID
        
        save ado/personal/maptile_geographies/state_id_fips, replace
        
    restore
    
merge 1:1 _ID using ado/personal/maptile_geographies/state_id_fips, update replace nogen


set seed 8675309    
gen var=runiform(-5,5)
    
    replace var=round(var,0.1)
    
    * center the labels on the state
    * al
    replace x=x+0.75 if statefips==1
    replace y=y+2 if statefips==1
    
    * ak
    replace x=x+0.5 if statefips==2
    replace y=y+3 if statefips==2
    
    * az
    replace x=x+2.5 if statefips==4
    replace y=y+0.5 if statefips==4

    * ar
    replace x=x-0.75 if statefips==5
    replace y=y-0.5 if statefips==5

    * ca
    replace x=x+1.5 if statefips==6
    replace y=y+0.5 if statefips==6

    * co
    replace x=x-2.25 if statefips==8

    * ct
    replace x=x+0.15 if statefips==9
    replace y=y+0.55 if statefips==9

    * de TOO SMALL, out to sea!
    replace y=y-0.85 if statefips==10
    replace x=x+1.5 if statefips==10
    
    * dc TOO SMALL
    replace y=. if statefips==11
    replace x=. if statefips==11

    * fl
    replace x=x+0.75 if statefips==12

    * ga
    replace x=x-0.5 if statefips==13
    replace y=y+0.5 if statefips==13

    * hi
    replace x=x+3.5 if statefips==15
    replace y=y-1.75 if statefips==15

    * id
    replace y=y-2 if statefips==16
    
    * il is fine
    
    * in
    replace x=x+0.4 if statefips==18
    replace y=y+1.25 if statefips==18
    
    * ia is fine
    
    * ks
    replace x=x-0.5 if statefips==20
    
    * ky
    replace x=x+1 if statefips==21
    replace y=y-0.25 if statefips==21
    
    * la
    replace x=x-1.75 if statefips==22
    replace y=y+1.0 if statefips==22

    * me
    replace x=x-0.5 if statefips==23
    replace y=y+1.75 if statefips==23

    * md TOO SMALL out to sea
    replace x=x+2 if statefips==24
    replace y=y-1 if statefips==24

    * ma
    replace x=x+1.25 if statefips==25
    replace y=y+1 if statefips==25
    
    * mi
    replace x=x+1.5 if statefips==26
    replace y=y-4 if statefips==26

    * mn
    replace x=x-2 if statefips==27
    replace y=y-1 if statefips==27
    
    * ms
    replace x=x+0.5 if statefips==28
    replace y=y+1.5 if statefips==28
    
    * mo is fine
    
    * mt
    replace x=x+2.5 if statefips==30
    
    * ne
    replace x=x-0.5 if statefips==31
    replace y=y+0.75 if statefips==31

    * nv
    replace x=x-1.75 if statefips==32
    replace y=y+2.5 if statefips==32
    
    * nh
    replace x=x-0.35 if statefips==33
    replace y=y-0.35 if statefips==33
    
    * nj OUT TO SEA
    replace x=x+1.6 if statefips==34
    replace y=y-0.25 if statefips==34

    * nm
    replace x=x-0.75 if statefips==35
    replace y=y+1.5 if statefips==35

    * ny
    replace x=x-1.25 if statefips==36
    replace y=y+2.25 if statefips==36
    
    * nc
    replace x=x-2 if statefips==37
    
    * nd
    replace x=x+0.85 if statefips==38
    replace y=y+1.35 if statefips==38
    
    * oh
    replace x=x-0.35 if statefips==39
    replace y=y-1.25 if statefips==39
    
    * ok
    replace y=y-1 if statefips==40
    
    * or
    replace x=x+2.5 if statefips==41
    replace y=y-1.5 if statefips==41
    
    * pa is fine
    
    * ri
    replace x=x+0.35 if statefips==44
    replace y=y-0.8 if statefips==44    
    
    * sc is fine
    
    * sd
    replace x=x-0.75 if statefips==46
    replace y=y-0.5 if statefips==46

    * tn
    replace y=y-0.35 if statefips==47

    * tx
    replace x=x-1.25 if statefips==48
    replace y=y+2.75 if statefips==48

    * ut is fine
    
    * vt
    replace x=x-0.25 if statefips==50
    replace y=y+2.1 if statefips==50

    * va
    replace x=x-1.5 if statefips==51
    replace y=y+0.25 if statefips==51
    
    * wa
    replace x=x+2 if statefips==53
    replace y=y-1.25 if statefips==53
    
    * wv
    replace x=x-0.25 if statefips==54
    replace y=y-0 if statefips==54
    
    * wi
    replace x=x-1.75 if statefips==55
    replace y=y-0.5 if statefips==55
    
    * wy
    replace x=x-1.5 if statefips==56
    
    keep x y state var statefips

#delimit;
maptile var, geo(state) geoid(state) legd(1) fcolor(BuYlRd) cutvalues(-4(2)4)
    spopt(
        label(xcoord(x) ycoord(y) size(small) label(var))
        )    
    savegraph(sample_state_label.png) replace;

[Michael Stepner]

Nice work Jake Mortenson! The product looks really nice.

If you wanted to generate centroids, you could download the state Source Files zip on the maptile website, and adapt build_state.do. You'd need to add the gencentroids() option to the -shp2dta- statement, and project the resulting variables from lat/lon to x/y space.

[Michael Stepner]

This is a heads up post for anyone who is googling a bug in maptile where they get an error message saying:

option la() not allowed

I've received two reports of this bug by email. Both people encountering it were using Stata 15.0 on Windows 7.

Solution: Upgrading from Stata 15.0 to Stata 15.1 solves the problem.

[Michael Stepner]

A further clarification about the option la() not allowed error in maptile: it doesn't only happen on Windows 7. But it is consistently fixed by upgrading Stata from 15.0 to 15.1, according to the reports I've received.

Thank you to Greg Bruich and Puneet for figuring this out with me, since I haven't had access to Stata 15.0 to debug the issue.

[Duard Gali]

Hello Michael Stepner, I have been tasked at work with creating a map of zip codes of research participants accessing care at our clinical site. I'll be honest, I'm a total noob when it comes to STATA only taking one stats class where it was the main program we used for analysis. Anyhow, I installed maptile and the corresponding zip5 geography ado and ran my code, but I keep getting the "variable zip5 not found" error after running the line of code, maptile zipfreq, geography(zip5). Do you have any idea how to resolve this? Thanks in advance!

[Michael Stepner]

Hello Duard Gali, does your dataset contain a variable named "zip5" containing the 5-digit zip codes associated with each "zipfreq" that you want to plot on a map?

The introductory slide deck posted on the maptile website may help you. It walks through how to structure your data to produce a map for the first time.

[Duard Gali]

Michael Stepner Beautiful, that did it! Thank you for your help!

[Sonnen Blume]

maptile makes it easy to map a variable in Stata. It is now available in the SSC, with thanks to Kit Baum.

maptile generates choropleth maps. It divides the areas on the map into groups and shades them in increasing intensity according to the value of the variable being plotted. The map itself is drawn using geography templates, which can be downloaded here. These templates are easy to create and share.

Check out the maptile website for further details!

---

maptile is built on top of Maurizio Pisati’s spmap. spmap is an outstanding program which runs behind-the-scenes to draw each map when you run maptile. Without spmap, maptile would not exist.

A key contribution of maptile is its very accessible syntax. As its help file states, “spmap gives the user full control over the formatting of almost every map element, thus allowing the production of highly customized maps”. When using maptile, most of these customizations are stored away in the geography template. As a result, the syntax for making highly customized maps using maptile can be very simple. Additionally, the geography templates can be easily shared and used by others.

Thanks so much for the wonderful package! Are there geography templates for countries other than Canada and USA yet, particularly Asia and African countries?

[Michael Stepner]

Thanks so much for the wonderful package! Are there geography templates for countries other than Canada and USA yet, particularly Asia and African countries?

None yet, but only because no one has made them!