Creating Twitter maps

Analyzing Social Media Data in Python

Alex Hanna

Computational Social Scientist

Introducing Basemap

Contour example in Basemap

Library for plotting two-dimensional maps
Built on top of matplotlib
Converts coordinates into map projections

Beginning with Basemap

from mpl_toolkits.basemap 
    import Basemap

m = Basemap(projection='merc',
            llcrnrlat = -35.62,
            llcrnrlon = -17.29,
            urcrnrlat = 37.73,
            urcrnrlon = 51.39)

m.fillcontinents(color='white')
m.drawcoastlines(color='gray')
m.drawcountries(color='gray')

Basemap render of Africa

Plotting points

africa = pd.read_csv('africa.csv')
longs  = africa['CapitalLongtiude']
lats   = africa['CapitalLatitude']

m = Basemap(...)

m.fillcontinents(color='white', 
    zorder = 0)
m.drawcoastlines(color='gray')
m.drawcountries(color='gray')

m.scatter(longs.values, 
          lats.values, 
          latlon = True, 
          alpha = 0.7)

African capitals in Basemap

Using color

africa = pd.read_csv('africa.csv')
longs  = africa['CapitalLongtiude']
lats   = africa['CapitalLatitude']
arabic = africa['Arabic']

m = Basemap(...)
m.fillcontinents(color='white', 
    zorder = 0)
m.drawcoastlines(color='gray')
m.drawcountries(color='gray')

m.scatter(longs.values, 
          lats.values, 
          latlon = True, 
          c = arabic.values,
          cmap = 'Paired',
          alpha = 1)

African capitals, Arabic-speaking

Let's practice!

Analyzing Social Media Data in Python