Geography: Graphs and Data Presentation

• Graphs and maps effectively display geographical information.
• Choosing the correct data presentation method is important in geography.
• Constructing graphs is a fundamental geographical skill.
• Graphs effectively show numerical data and highlight patterns.

Types of Graphs

• Line graphs illustrate data changes over time or space.
• The x-axis of a line graph represents time or distance.
• Line charts depict changes such as a country's employment structure over time.
• In the post-industrial era, unemployment is distributed as follows: approximately 11% in primary industries, 31% in secondary industries, 54% in tertiary industries, and 4% in quaternary industries.
• Primary industries have decreased since pre-industrial times, secondary industries peaked during industrial times, tertiary industries have grown, and quaternary industries are recent.
• Bar charts show grouped data in rectangular bars, like the number of tourists visiting a resort each month.
• Divided bar charts break down information further by splitting each bar, such as showing the age breakdown of tourists.
• Bar charts indicate a single value, while divided bar charts divide the bar into colored sections, with a key for data breakdown.
• Population pyramids are bar charts displaying the age and gender structure of a population.
• Population pyramids arrange bars sideways; the x-axis indicates the number of people, and the y-axis shows age.
• Population pyramids use bars on the left for males and bars on the right for females.
• Population pyramids can use absolute or percentage figures on the x-axis.
• Most people in the UK population are in the 30 to 39 age range; amounts sharply decrease after 55
• Climate graphs combine bar charts and line graphs to show average temperature (line) and total rainfall (bars) over months (x-axis).
• Discrete bar graphs are for non-continuous data and have gaps between the bars.
• The UK's average temperature peaks in July and August at 23°C.
• Rainfall occurs year-round, peaking in October at 63 mm. The 5 readings when reading climate graphs follow:
  • Describe Patterns
  • Temperature
  • Rainfall
  • and how they relate to each other
  • The culmination of this informaiton should give a description of the climate being displayed
• Histograms show frequencies rather than groups of data.
• Histograms illustrate frequencies of events like earthquake magnitudes on the Richter scale.
• A bar height indicates data frequency, such as the number of earthquakes per magnitude; for example, earthquakes with a magnitude of 3 on the Richter scale had the greatest frequency on the shown graph.