Maps are flexible and widely understood tools that we use to visualize data.
In order to put together any sort of map (except an SVG map!), you need to make sure you have GeoJSON for any geographies you will want to display. GeoJSON is a JSON format for encoding geographical data. The GeoJSON website has a reliable example of what this format must look like. For a deeper dive into the format, this blog post is a good place to start. GeoJSON is limited by how much data it can render. If you GeoJSON data has 10,000 or more objects, then you should look into using a service like Carto or Mapbox. These services can handle millions of objects on a map by rasterizing their own tiles to show only the data at the zoom level and window being viewed by the user.
Having this information, the next step is to decide what kind of functionality you will need your map to have:
- Need a slippy map, also known as a tiled map? Use Leaflet
- Are you planning to use React to render your front-end? Pay special attention to the nuances of React-Leaflet
- Will you be using custom geographies? Use Leaflet together with PostGIS
- Do you need to show information for geographical features like stores or parks? Make sure to use Google APIs maps and geocoding
- If you don’t need a slippy map, don’t need to display geographical features, and you have access to an SVG file of the geographies you will be using, implementing an SVG map is a good choice