{"id":2617342,"date":"2024-12-09T10:53:13","date_gmt":"2024-12-09T18:53:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/?post_type=blog&#038;p=2617342"},"modified":"2024-12-09T10:53:13","modified_gmt":"2024-12-09T18:53:13","slug":"three-versions-of-the-truth","status":"publish","type":"blog","link":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/products\/arcgis-living-atlas\/mapping\/three-versions-of-the-truth","title":{"rendered":"Three versions of the truth"},"author":6971,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_searchwp_excluded":""},"categories":[22941],"tags":[26451,496632,26401,230422,32661],"industry":[],"product":[36581],"class_list":["post-2617342","blog","type-blog","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mapping","tag-cartography","tag-choropleth","tag-classification","tag-data","tag-thematic-mapping","product-arcgis-living-atlas"],"acf":{"short_description":"How a classification method carries a message. It's up to you which message it carries, so choose wisely.","flexible_content":[{"acf_fc_layout":"content","content":"<p>You may have heard that &#8220;all maps lie&#8221; and that&#8217;s right. Each map is a collection of compromises, whether they&#8217;re geomatic (your projection and scale choices), editorial (your choice of subject and what you&#8217;ve chosen to show and not show), and thematic (how you choose to show quantitative information). There are myriad others of course, too. The gist is maps carry with them the galaxy of choices of their makers, for better or worse. We want to push our maps on the &#8220;for better&#8221; side of that balance.<\/p>\n<p>Let&#8217;s take a look at how our choice of classification method impacts the message communicated to your readers. Here are a handful of the more common classifications, and the profound visual impact they have. This video is a small segment of the <em>Going Places with Spatial Analysis<\/em> MOOC. Learn more about that free course, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/training\/catalog\/57660f19bb54adb30c9454b0\/going-places-with-spatial-analysis\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n"},{"acf_fc_layout":"youtube","start_time":"0","end_time":"","youtube_video_url":"<iframe title=\"Telling the Truth with Maps\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/R1Tfla2DieQ?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>"},{"acf_fc_layout":"content","content":"<p>0:00 Mind-bending intro<br \/>\n0:24 Why classify?<br \/>\n1:35 Equal Interval<br \/>\n2:30 Standard Deviation<br \/>\n3:09 Quantile<br \/>\n3:47 Natural Breaks<br \/>\n4:20 Just skip to this handy summary<br \/>\n5:29 Confusing ending<\/p>\n<p>All maps are messengers, and the message they carry has a lot to do with our choices. We makers have a wonderful responsibility to do right by the phenomenon we reveal. The first step is understanding our options and making a thoughtful choice\u2014always with the earnest goal of telling the truthiest version of the truth.<\/p>\n<p>Happy mapping! Love, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/@JohnNelsonMaps\/videos\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">John<\/a><\/p>\n<p>P.S. Have a look at the demographic content in <a href=\"https:\/\/livingatlas.arcgis.com\/en\/browse\/#d=2&amp;categories=People\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Living Atlas<\/a> for a bonanza of data ready for your classification wielding.<\/p>\n"}],"authors":[{"ID":6971,"user_firstname":"John","user_lastname":"Nelson","nickname":"John Nelson","user_nicename":"j_nelson","display_name":"John Nelson","user_email":"John_Nelson@esri.com","user_url":"http:\/\/www.adventuresinmapping.com","user_registered":"2018-03-02 00:19:05","user_description":"I have far too much fun looking for ways to understand and present data visually, hopefully driving product strategy and engaging users. I work in the ArcGIS Living Atlas team at Esri, pushing and pulling data in all sorts of absurd ways and then sharing the process. I also design user experiences for maps and apps.\r\nWhen I'm not doing those things, I'm chasing around toddlers and wrangling chickens, and generally getting into other ad-hoc adventures. Life is good.\r\nYou might also like these Styles for ArcGIS Pro: esriurl.com\/nelsonstyles","user_avatar":"<img data-del=\"avatar\" src='https:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/app\/uploads\/2018\/04\/Profile.jpg' class='avatar pp-user-avatar avatar-96 photo ' height='96' width='96'\/>"}],"related_articles":"","show_article_image":false,"card_image":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/app\/uploads\/2024\/12\/ClassificationMethods_Card.jpg","wide_image":false},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v25.9 (Yoast SEO v25.9) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Three versions of the truth<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/products\/arcgis-living-atlas\/mapping\/three-versions-of-the-truth\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" 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I work in the ArcGIS Living Atlas team at Esri, pushing and pulling data in all sorts of absurd ways and then sharing the process. I also design user experiences for maps and apps. When I'm not doing those things, I'm chasing around toddlers and wrangling chickens, and generally getting into other ad-hoc adventures. Life is good. You might also like these Styles for ArcGIS Pro: esriurl.com\/nelsonstyles","sameAs":["http:\/\/www.adventuresinmapping.com","https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/johnmnelson\/","www.linkedin.com\/in\/johnmnelson","https:\/\/x.com\/john_m_nelson","https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/JohnNelsonMaps"],"url":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/author\/j_nelson"}]}},"text_date":"December 9, 2024","author_name":"John Nelson","author_page":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/author\/j_nelson","custom_image":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/app\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Newsroom-Keyart-Wide-1920-x-1080.jpg","primary_product":"ArcGIS Living Atlas","tag_data":[{"term_id":26451,"name":"cartography","slug":"cartography","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":26451,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":558,"filter":"raw"},{"term_id":496632,"name":"choropleth","slug":"choropleth","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":496632,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":6,"filter":"raw"},{"term_id":26401,"name":"classification","slug":"classification","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":26401,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":10,"filter":"raw"},{"term_id":230422,"name":"data","slug":"data","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":230422,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":34,"filter":"raw"},{"term_id":32661,"name":"thematic mapping","slug":"thematic-mapping","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":32661,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":37,"filter":"raw"}],"category_data":[{"term_id":22941,"name":"Mapping","slug":"mapping","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":22941,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":2691,"filter":"raw"}],"product_data":[{"term_id":36581,"name":"ArcGIS Living Atlas","slug":"arcgis-living-atlas","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":36581,"taxonomy":"product","description":"","parent":0,"count":1171,"filter":"raw"}],"primary_product_link":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/?s=#&products=arcgis-living-atlas","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/blog\/2617342","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/blog"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/blog"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6971"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2617342"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/blog\/2617342\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2617342"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2617342"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2617342"},{"taxonomy":"industry","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/industry?post=2617342"},{"taxonomy":"product","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product?post=2617342"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}