qgis basics for journalists

By Len De Groot   ·   Updated Mar 16, 2012   ·   Print Print

Introduction

QGIS is a free, open source GIS application for Windows and Mac that provides a great starting point for journalists who want to learn to explore data with maps.

Understanding how to visualize map data is an important skill but it can be intimidating. This tutorial will guide you through the basics, covering how GIS files work, how to edit them and how to join them with external data for analysis. It will also give you the tools to make simple, interactive data maps that work on every platform.

This tutorial was created using version 1.6. Version 1.7 introduced a couple of significant changes. I'll try to address them as we go.

Filed under: Maps, Data Visualization

Comments

1) Bob Rebach, September 6, 2011 at 9:03 a.m. [Link]

You might want to consider adding to the tutorial what to download and install from the QGIS site, it isn't the easiest thing to understand.

2) Len De Groot, September 6, 2011 at 1:15 p.m. [Link]

Good idea. I just added a quick guide to the basic install.

3) Tim Sutton, September 16, 2011 at 12:49 p.m. [Link]

Hi Len

I am one of the developers of QGIS. I just saw this tutorial mentioned on twitter and thought I would take a look. I must say you have done and awesome job of it and I was wondering if you would be interested in contributing your tutorial to the QGIS community - it would be great to incorporate it, or a modified version of it into our standard documentation.

Best regards

Tim Sutton (QGIS Release Manager)

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