Visibility Base Map of the United States

DESCRIPTION:

Constructs a Visibility Base Map of the United States. The object state.vbm.center contains coordinates of the centers of the 50 states (in alphabetical order). Copyright 1982 Mark Monmonier; used with permission.

These objects are part of the maps library. To make them available in your Spotfire S+ session, use the command library(maps).

USAGE:

map("state.vbm") 
state.vbm.center 

DETAILS:

The Visibility Base Map is a map of the United States in which areas are adjusted to provide a readily readable platform for smaller states, such as Delaware and Rhode Island. Sizes of larger states are reduced to compensate for the increased area of the smaller states. The map includes all 50 states, with Alaska and Hawaii positioned to the West of Texas.

The state.vbm database is currently available only in Unix versions of the maps library. The state.vmb.center object is available on both Unix and Windows.

REFERENCES:

Monmonier, M. and Schnell, G. (1983). The Study of Population: Elements, Patterns, Processes. Columbus, OH: Charles E. Merrill.

Monmonier, M. (1993). Mapping It Out: Expository Cartography for the Humanities and Social Sciences. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

SEE ALSO:

.

EXAMPLES:

# load the maps library.
library(maps)
map("state.vbm", fill=T, col=colors)
state.vbm.center