The Wealth Divide in Spain

Spanish newspaper El Pais has mapped out the average income per person across the whole of Spain. The map shows a stark divide between the north and south of the country.

The Map of Spanish Incomes, Street by Street visualizes the average income in every neighborhood in the country. If you hover over an individual neighborhood on the map you can view the average income in the area. Immediately below the map you can also view in which percentile the neighborhood's income resides compared to the whole of Spain. This allows you to compare the local average income to the average income across the country.

The article accompanying the map includes an analysis of the income levels in a number of Spanish cities. For example in the northern city of San Sebastian all the city's neighborhoods have an average income in the top 30% of earners. In Madrid there is a larger wealth divide between some neighborhoods. This divide is marked by the M-30 orbital road. With those living inside the orbital earning, on average, significantly more than those living outside the ring-road.

The city of Almeria, in the southeast of Spain, has a number of neighborhoods with some of the lowest average incomes in the country. Like Madrid there is also a stark wealth divide between some of the city's  neighborhoods. Many of Almeria's poorer areas are immediately adjacent to some of the town's richest neighborhoods.

These Data Maps are Beautiful

The Geographies of Innovation interactive maps are fantastic works of art. I'd definitely hang them on my walls. But do they work as data visualizations?

Geographies of Innovation is a series of beautiful looking data visualizations exploring where innovative initiatives in Barcelona are located. It includes four different map views of innovative companies in the city, examining how different factors influence the location of these companies. These layers examine the socio-demographic context, the urban fabric, the functional indicators (infrastructure) and spatial organisation (network).


I think it is fair to say that some of the design choices made in the creation of these maps were based more on aesthetic than legibility concerns. However despite the artistic choices of colors and the lack of place labels the maps still work as data visualizations. For example the map above is an effective visualization of the spatial organization of innovative companies. The different colored circles indicate different types of companies and allow you to see where different types of innovative companies cluster in the city.


However some of the map layers can be difficult to read. The map keys and the use of mouse-overs on the map help to some extent. Each map layer also comes with a very brief introduction. These are visually attractive maps but they are also visually complex as well. I definitely think a longer pop-up walk-through tutorial for each layer would be very useful for the user.

The 2019 Spanish Election Maps

The centre-left Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) have emerged as the main winners in yesterday's national election in Spain. The party took 28.7% and won the most seats (123 seats, an increase of 38 seats from 2016). The biggest losers were the corruption hit centre-right People's Party (PP), who lost about half of their voters. The PP only managed to win 66 seats (down from 135 seats in 2016).

You can explore the results for yourself on El Pais' 2019 General Election map. The map reveals that the PSOE were popular throughout much of the country and that the PP lost votes nearly everywhere, but most dramatically in the south and east of the country. The PP were the most successful party in the last election in 2016, however the party has been damaged by corruption scandals and by its handling of the Catalan independence issue.


Last week El Pais published an interactive map of the 2016 Spanish Election. The image above shows the 2016 (left) and 2019 (right) election maps side-by-side. This map clearly shows how the PP lost ground throughout central Spain and how the PSOE has spread from its traditional southern stronghold to capture most of Spain.

The fall of the centre-right PP also resulted in a rise in seats for the centre-right Citizens party and the far-right Vox party. The Citizens party won 57 seats (a rise of 25) and for the first time Vox picked up 24 seats (0 seats in 2016).

Despite the huge rise in support for the centre-left PSOE they still remain short of the 176 seats they need for a working majority. The party will therefore need to rely on the support of the Unidas Podemos party (42 seats) and some of the smaller regional and nationalist parties to form a government.


After the midterm U.S. elections last year many interactive maps used directional arrows to visualize the swing in votes towards either the Democrats or the Republicans. El Diaro has created a similar directional arrow map for the 2019 Spanish election which shows where Spain has moved to the left or right since the 2016 election.

If you click on the 'Por Bloques' tab above the El Diaro interactive map and then select the 'Variación sobre 2016' map you can view an arrow map showing where the vote swung left or right in this election. The map reveals a huge swing to left-wing parties in the north-west regions of Spain, along the Mediterranean coast and in Madrid. There seems to have been a swing to right-wing parties in the south of Spain, but these swings appear very small compared to the larger swing to the left elsewhere in Spain.


The only map I can find which provides a breakdown of where people voted for the extreme right Vox party is on Reddit. This map shows the percentage of votes cast for Vox in each constituency area (you can view the percentage of votes cast for all of the parties in each constituency on Wikipedia).

The two dots underneath Spain on the map are the two Spanish autonomous cities of Ceuta and Mililla, both of which are situated on the north coast of Africa. Cueta recorded the highest percentage (24%) of the electorate voting for Vox in the whole of Spain. Melilla recorded the fourth highest percentage vote (16.9%). Morocco believes that sovereignty of Ceuta and Melilla should be transferred to Morocco. This may be one reason why voters in the two cities voted in such high numbers for a nationalist party like Vox. Other constituencies which voted in higher percentages for Vox than the rest of Spain were: Alemeira (19.2%) and Murcia (18.6%) on the south-east coast, and Toledo (16.9%) and Guadalajara (16.5%) in the Castilla–La Mancha region of Spain.

The areas which showed the least support for Vox are all in the Basque Country and Catalonia. You could argue that voters there voted for their own Nationalist parties. However it is probably more accurate to say that Vox's opposition to Basque and Catalan autonomy proved particularly unpopular to voters in these two regions.

The 2019 Spanish Election

Spain's general election will take place this Sunday (April 28th). All 350 seats in the Congress of Deputies are up for election, as well as 208 of the 266 seats in the Senate. Ahead of the election El Pais has released a detailed interactive map of the results from the 2016 Spanish Election. El Mapa del Voto en Toda Espana provides a stark illustration of the geographical strongholds of the main political parties.

The centre-right People's Party (PP) won the most votes in the 2016 election. The centre-left Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) got the second most votes. As you can see on the map the PSOE performed well in the south of the country. They also performed well in the mining areas of Asturias. In the Basque region the Basque Nationalist Party (PNV) was the most popular political party. In Catalonia the Republican Left of Catalonia (ERC) was very popular. The left-wing Unidos Podemos (now Unidas Podemos) was the third most popular party nationally.

The new far-right Vox party didn't really feature in the 2016 election, so don't appear on the map. Vox may capture some votes from the People's Party this time around, mainly because  the PP have been hit in recent years by a number of corruption scandals. The emergence of the centre-right Citizens party may also have an impact on the People's Party. The polls predict that PSOE will win the most seats of all the parties but won't get an overall majority. They will be hoping that PP, Citizens and Vox don't get enough seats between them to form a coalition government.

Why Vultures Don't Like Borders

Vultures can fly huge distances over the course of a single day - but not if they have to cross an international border. In just one day vultures can fly 300 to 400 kilometers in search of food. However scientists in Spain have discovered that Spanish vultures don't like to fly into Portugal.

Spanish biologists fitted 71 Griffon and Cinereous vultures in the Portuguese-Spanish border region with GPS trackers. They discovered that the birds hardly ever crossed the border into Portugal. This border region consists largely of river valleys and there are no geographical or climatic reasons why the birds should stop at the border. There must therefore be another reason why the vultures prefer to remain in Spain.

It is true that most vultures don't carry passports, but that isn't the reason why they avoid Portugal. The reason is the availability of dead livestock. There just happens to be more dead animal carcasses lying in Spanish fields than there are in Portugal (where the authorities collect and dispose of livestock). After the mad cow disease scares of the 1980's & 1990's the European Union introduced directives that required the incineration of cow carcasses. This law was passed to ensure that when cows died they were not allowed to decompose naturally. This is not good news for vultures who like nothing more than snacking on the dead bodies of other animals.

Partly because of the environmental effects of the directive on the disposal of cow carcasses and partly due to the containment of the disease the EU has since relaxed the rules on the disposal of dead livestock. Member states and their own regulatory bodies now have more independence as to how farmers should dispose of dead cows. In Spain the authorities now allow dead cattle to decompose naturally in authorized areas. In Portugal the national government has done nothing to change the regulatory system of disposing of dead cows since the 1991 EU directive. Therefore Portuguese farmers must still incinerate dead cattle.

It appears that vultures have quickly learnt that they are unlikely to find food in Portugal. They therefore avoid the country and dine instead on the more readily available Spanish carrion.

From Invisible barriers: Differential sanitary regulations constrain vulture movements across country borders, Eneko Arrondo et al. Via El Pais

Mapping Internal Migration

Internal Migration in the City of Barcelona 2016 is a simple but effective visualization of where Barcelona residents moved to and from within the city in 2016. The map provides an overall scale of the numbers of people moving between Barcelona's different neighborhoods without giving the precise figures of how many people moved between each district.

The scaled markers on the map provides a rough overview of how many people moved into or out of each Barcelona neighborhood from elsewhere in the city. If you can switch between the incoming and outgoing internal migration views the markers automatically change to represent the numbers for the selected view. If you then hover over a neighborhood on the map flow-lines show all the other districts where residents moved to or from.

These flow-lines are scaled to show the number of residents who moved between the different neighborhoods. Some of the flow-lines have numbers attached, which presumably represent the number of residents who moved between the two connected neighborhoods. However not all the flow-lines are annotated with the number of residents. The scaled neighborhood markers on the map also don't give the precise numbers of internal migrants. When you hover over the neighborhood markers the neighborhood's name is revealed. It would be nice if the number of internal migrants (incoming or outgoing depending on the view) was also revealed when you hover over a marker.

The Internal Migration in the City of Barcelona 2016 map is therefore an effective visualization of the general size of internal migration between different neighborhoods in the city. However it isn't much use if you want to know the precise number of residents moving between different neighborhoods in Barcelona.


The US Migration Flow Map provides a nice example of how an internal migration flow map can provide the actual numbers of people moving between different areas.

The US Migration Flow Map, like the Barcelona map, uses scaled flow-lines to visualize the numbers of people moving between different states in the USA. The size of the flow-lines on the map is representative of the number of people moving between two states. However, unlike the Barcelona map, you can also hover over the lines to view the total number of people moving between the two states. You can also hover over a state on the map to view the total number of internal and external migrants.

Migration in Latvia is another internal migration map which allows you to hover over the flow-lines on the map to view the precise number of people moving between two regions. Hover over a selected region on the map and you can also view details on the total number of people who moved in and out of the region.

Catalan Through the Ages

The Historical Comparison of the Territory tool allows you to visualize aerial images of Catalan from 1945 until today. The map allows you to select any location and compare aerial images of the area from different years side-by-side. The tool even allows you to create an animated GIF showing how a chosen area has changed over the decades.

The map includes a search facility so you can search for a Catalan location by name. Alternatively you can select a Catalan municipality from the drop-down menu. Once you have centered the map on your chosen location you can choose a year for the two sets of aerial imagery you want to view. The map includes historical imagery from the 1940's, 1950's and for most years since 1983 until the present.

The big yellow button under the map allows you to create an animated GIF for any location. Press the button and the map will create an animated GIF showing your selected area from 1945 to the present day, using all the available historical aerial imagery for your location.

Where Catalans Want Independence

The results of the latest regional elections in Catalonia show a similar geographical split between urban and rural voters as has been seen in other recent elections around the world. After both the United States Presidential election and the Brexit referendum in the UK many observers noted divergent voting patterns among rural and urban voters. In both these cases poorer, more rural areas showed more support for the anti-establishment candidate or position. The more affluent and urban areas were more likely to vote for what were seen as the establishment candidate or position.

This geographical split in supporting the establishment or anti-establishment position can be seen in the most recent Catalan regional elections. Last week we looked at La Vanguardia's interactive map of the Catalan Regional Election, which shows the political party with the most votes in each municipality. This map revealed that the Pro-Independence parties did best in rural areas of Catalan, while the pro-Unionist parties got their best results in more populated, urban areas.

This urban - rural split for Catalan independence is examined more closely by El Diario. El Diario's Analysis of 21D uses a series of charts, cartograms and maps to examine how support for the pro and anti independence political parties has changed since the last regional elections. It also examines where there is most support for independence in the region and which areas show most support for remaining a part of Spain.

The pro-Unionist parties won the majority of votes in the big cities. While the rural areas in the region showed the most support for independence. However this urban-rural split isn't the only pattern picked up by El Diario's analysis. Perhaps unsurprisingly one of the strongest indicators of a high independence vote in a municipality is the percentage of its inhabitants born in Catalonia. Those municipalities with the most voters born in Catalonia showed the biggest support for independence. Non-Catalan born voters were more likely to vote for pro-Unionist parties and these voters tend to live in the big cities and more urban areas of Catalan.

Catalan Regional Election Map

Pro-Independence parties in Catalan have just held on to a slim majority in a snap regional election. The election was called by the Spanish government who were hoping that the pro-unionist Citizens party would be able to defeat the secessionists. The Citizens party did pick up the most seats (37) of any single party but the three separatist parties between them picked up 70 seats in the regional parliament.

La Vanguardia has published an interactive map of the Catalan Regional Election, showing the winner in each municipality. The color of each municipality on the map indicates the party with the most votes:

Yellow - Republican Left of Catalonia (pro-independence)
Blue - Junts per Catalunya (pro-independence)
Red - Socialists' Party of Catalonia (pro-independence)
Orange - Citizens (pro-Unionist)

If you select an area on the map you can view the number & percentage of the votes won by the leading party and the number & percentage of votes picked up by the second most popular party in each municipal area. La Vanguaridia's map shows the results by municipal area rather than by electoral area. This tends to portray a distorted picture of the overall results (which is perhaps what the newspaper wants to do). However it does mean that you can view the most popular party in each town in Catalan.

The Poor in Spain Live Mainly on the Plain

Eldiario.es has mapped the average income in every Spanish municipality (with more than 1,000 residents) to work out where the rich and poor live in Spain. The map uses data from income tax returns from 2015.

The Map of Average Incomes in Spain shows that the ten richest municipalities in Spain are all in Barcelona and Madrid. The poorest municipality is Zahínos, a small town in the province of Badajoz. This gap in average incomes between urban and rural communities is reflected across the whole country. People who live in towns and cities on average have higher incomes than those living in the countryside.

One thing which the newspaper doesn't discuss is Catalan independence. When I looked at the map that huge blue patch in the north-east of Spain caught my eye. You can see why Spain is desperate to keep hold of Catalonia and all those tax returns.

The Rent in Spain Falls Mainly Down the Drain

Renting an apartment in Madrid or Barcelona is becoming very difficult for anyone who isn't already rich or a high earner. Like many other cites in the developed world a number of factors have combined to price many people out of being able to afford to rent an apartment in Spain's two most populous cities.

Tell Me How Much You Can Afford and I'll Tell You Where to Live explains the problems of renting in Madrid and Barcelona. It also explores the reasons behind the high rents and then suggests some possible solutions. The article includes an interactive map which allows you to explore how much salary you need to rent in different neighborhoods in both cities. The map allows you to enter your monthly salary and the size of the apartment that you want to rent. The city's neighborhoods are then colored on the map to show the percentage of your salary that you would need to be able to rent in that area of the city.

The map also includes a timeline control which allows you to compare the current situation to previous years. Therefore if you are depressed by the current situation you can depress yourself further by sliding the years back to see how far back in time you would have to travel before you could afford to rent in Barcelona or Madrid.

The Top 100 Cultural Landscapes in Spain

Narrating Landscapes is a new interactive map designed to highlight some of the most interesting and beautiful locations in Spain. The map shows the locations of 100 of the most astonishing 'cultural landscapes' in Spain - places where there has been extraordinary interactions between man and the natural environment.

Like the cultural landscapes being showcased here the map itself is beautiful. I especially like the round information windows and the animated map markers. If you click through on one of the cultural landscapes you can view photos and videos of the selected location. You are also shown other nearby cultural landscapes on a separate interactive map.

The cultural landscapes themselves have been organized into five different colored categories on the map. The categories of cultural landscape are: agricultural, urban, defense, historical and industrial.

The Aged in Spain Live Mainly on the Plain

The over 65's make up the majority of the population in 10 percent of census areas in Spain. Many of these neighborhoods with an aged population are in rural areas, such as Galicia and along the Mediterranean Coast. However it isn't true to say that the old in Spain live mainly on the plain. Many cities, like Burgos, Leon, Salamanca and Valladolid also have a high number of retirees living in the city center.

One of the key revelations in El Confidencial's interactive map What is the most common age of your neighbors? is that city centers in Spain tend to be populated by older residents and Millennials. Young families in Spain tend to live in the suburbs of cities where property prices are cheaper. Neighborhoods in city centers tend to be more popular with both Millennials and the elderly.

Each census tract on El Confiencial's map is colored according to the age group which is the most populous in that area. Using the interactive map you can select any census tract in Spain to see which age group is the most populous in that neighborhood.

Elevation & Shadow Mapping

The Cartographic and Geological Institute of Catalunya has developed a prototype terrain explorer for their 2 meter Digital Elevation Model of Catalonia. The Institute's Relief and Shadow map, created from Lidar data, allows you to view and interact in real-time with a relief map of the area.

Using Relief and Shadow you can explore the DEM model of Catalonia in an interactive Leaflet & Mapzen powered map. The map includes an impressive tool which allows you to color the terrain by elevation and by the direction of the sun. This tool allows you to change the appearance of the map in real-time by painting within an interactive compass rose.

Using the color-picker tool with the interactive compass rose you can paint the terrain on the map to highlight different elevation data and different directions of light. The center of the compass rose represents lower elevations on the map and the elevations become higher as you move to the circumference.

Relief and Shadow is partly based on Mapzen's Sphere Map Demo. You can learn more about how Mapzen developed their 'sphere maps' tool on this Mapzen Sphere Maps blog post.

The 3D Building Age Map

Building age maps have been very popular over the last couple of years (you can view a long list of city building age maps here). I predict that the next trend in building age maps will be to show building ages in 3d.

The first example of a 3d building age map that I've seen is this map of Vallvidrera in Catalonia. Edificacions dels Barris de Muntanya colors the extruded 3d buildings of Vallvidrera on the map based on the age of construction of each building. A building age map seems to me to be a very appropriate place for using Mapbox GL's new extrude property to visualize buildings in 3d. The result is that individual buildings are much more identifiable on the map from their extruded 3d shape than they would appear by simply showing individual building footprints.

Other good examples of Mapbox GL's new 3d capabilities can be seen on the Vancouver Zoning Map map and the Toronto Zoning Map. The Population Density Inspector also allows you to explore the number of people living in each census block in America in 3d, thanks to the Mapbox GL extrude property.

Closing the Metro Map

Yesterday Madrid closed part of Line 1 of the Metro de Madrid. Between now and mid-November, 23 stations will be out of action as the oldest line on the metro is modernized. The Closure of Line 1 examines the affect of the closure on passengers, their alternative means of transport and the modernization work schedule.

The Closure of Line 1 includes two interactive maps. The first map in the article shows the number of people who live within a ten minute walk of each station and the average number of daily passengers at each station. The second map uses a Voronoi overlay to divide Madrid into regions based on the nearest Metro station. Each section is also colored to show the average distance to the station for passengers living in that area of Madrid.

As well as the two interactive maps The Closure of Line 1 includes two animated aerial maps showing the effect that extending Line 1 has had on two districts of the city. These maps show a series of animated aerial views taken after the new sections of the line were open. These aerial images show the development of the areas after the opening of the metro stations.

The Spanish Election Map

Spain's second general election in six months has once again resulted in no political party gaining enough votes to take overall control of the government. You can view how each municipality voted in this interactive map from El Diario.

One surprise in the results was that the anti-austerity party Podemos did not increase their share of the vote. They were widely expected to overtake the socialist PSOE party, who again were the second most popular party. From the map you can see that Podemos still polled relatively well in the Basque country.

Elsewhere the map shows that the Catalonian parties still dominate in Catalonia and the two main parties, the PP and PSOE, polled well in the areas where they traditionally have a lot of support.

The History of Barcelona Mapped

The Museo D'Historia de Barcelona has created an interactive map which shows how the Catalan capital has evolved over more than twenty centuries. The Carta Historica Barcelona allows you to view a series of maps showing the development of Barcelona from a small Roman military camp to the huge modern city that it is today.

The timeline at the bottom of the map allows you to view an historical map of the city for important dates throughout its history. The layer icon in the main map menu allows you to overlay the modern map of the city on top of any of the historical maps. Using this option you can see how the city has evolved over time and place the historical map within the context of the city today.

The historical maps themselves have been recreated from historical vintage maps of the city and appear to be have been made using the Mapnik map rendering software.

Tilting at Windmills - The Life of Cervantes

Cervantes' novel Don Quixote is "the best book in the world". However the imagined chivalric adventures of Don Quixote are as nothing compared to the real-life adventures of the novel's author Miguel de Cervantes.

Cervantes was born in Spain. In his early twenties he moved to Rome to work in the house of a cardinal. He then enlisted as a Spanish soldier and was injured at the Battle of Lepanto. In 1575 Cervantes was captured by Barbary pirates. He tried, unsuccessfully, to escape four times. Eventually, after five long years of captivity. Cervantes's parents paid a ransom and our hero was released.

In 1581 Cervantes traveled to North Africa, possibly as a Spanish spy or diplomat. After this Cervantes settled down a little. He was sent to jail (for selling wheat without authorization). He got married (shortly after having an illicit child with the wife of another man). He was imprisoned again (because of the disappearance of some Crown money). He wrote Don Quixote. He died.

I know all of this thanks to a fascinating story map which recounts the life of Miguel de Cervantes. The IV Centenario de la Muerte de Cervantes celebrates the 400th anniversary of the death of Miguel de Cervantes by plotting the life and movements of the Spanish author on an interactive map.

The map also includes the dates and locations of a number of events, which are being held in Spain this year, to celebrate the life and work of this extraordinary author.

The Spanish Election Map

The two main political parties in Spain achieved historic lows in yesterday's Spanish elections. The Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) and the conservative People's Party (PP) still won the most votes but the anti-austerity Podemos party and the centre-right Ciudadanos party both managed to woo millions of voters away from Spain's two main political giants. The result means that neither the People's Party or the Socialist Workers Party will be able to form a majority government on their own.

This Spanish Election Map, created with CartoDB, shows which political party won in each municipality and the percentage of the votes that they won. The choropleth map provides a handy overview of which parties performed best in which areas of Spain.

However it is a shame that you can't filter the map by party. As the map is - it is a little hard to work out in which areas Podemos and Ciudadanos have done well. If you compare this map with the Spanish Safe Seats Map, it looks like the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party and the People's Party managed to retain a lot of their votes in their traditionally strongest municipalities. I'm finding it a little harder to work out where in Spain they have lost ground to their new opponents.