Datasets

To create this map we will be using the following datasets:

• Boroughs - New York City boroughs. Download from NYC Planning - Open Data. Choose "Borough Boundaries (Clipped to Shoreline)", under "Borough Boundaries & Community Districts".

• MapPLUTO - Manhattan MapPLUTO file (version 16v2), containing all the lots in New York and their attributes. The original PLUTO files can be downloaded from NYC Planning - Open Data. Make sure you download the files for all 5 boroughs. For more information about the PLUTO files and what each of the fields means take a look at the useful PLUTO data dictionary.

• Hurricane Evacuation Zones - representing varying threat levels of coastal flooding resulting from storm surge. Download from NYC OpenData. Once you get to the NYC OpenData page, click Export and choose the Shapefile format. A brief note about this dataset from NYC OpenData: "Hurricane evacuation zones should not be confused with flood insurance risk zones, which are designated by FEMA and available in the form of Flood Insurance Rate Maps (FIRMs)."

• Hydrography - New York City hydrography. Download from NYC Open Data. Once you get to the NYC OpenData page, click Export and choose the Shapefile format.

• Hydrography U.S. - United States hydrography. Download from the Bureau of Transportation Statistics. When you get to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics page click on the Hydrographic Features ZIP file.

• States - U.S. State Boundaries. Download from the Bureau of Transportation Statistics. When you get to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics page click on the U.S. State Boundaries ZIP file.

A packaged file of the above data can be found at brwn.co/L1D.

Adding Layers

The first step in creating a basic map is to open QGIS and add the layers you downloaded.

• To add shapefiles click on the Add Vector Layer button. Other types of data will be added using the other buttons, but in this tutorial we will only be using vector data (shapefiles). Other types of data include rasters, csv (comma separated values), and postGIS layers.



• Start by adding the Boroughs layer. The reason we start with this one is because we know it has the right projection for New York City (NAD_1983_StatePlane_New_York_Long_Island_FIPS_3104_Feet). Since map projects will automatically take the projection of the first layer we add, by loading this layer first we make sure we are working with the right one.

• Make sure you select the files with the extension .shp. Remember that a shapefile is actually made up of 5 or 6 individual files with different extensions. Normally, these individual files are the following:

  • .shp - The main file that stores the feature geometry (required).

  • .shx - The index file that stores the index of the feature geometry (required).

  • .dbf - The dBASE table that stores the attribute information of features (required).

  • .sbn and .sbx - The files that store the spatial index of features (these might get corrupted, see note at the end of this tutorial).

  • .prj - The file that stores the coordinate system information.

  • For more information on these extensions and others see this explanation by ESRI.

• Once you've added all the layers you downloaded, you need to organize them in the layer panel. Remember that the layers will be drawn in the same order they appear in the panel: the top layer will be drawn last, on top of the other ones.

• The final order of the layers should be something like this (from top to bottom):

  • Boroughs

  • Hydrography

  • Hydrography U.S. (choose the hydropol.shp file.)

  • Hurricane Evacuation Zones

  • MNMapPLUTO, QNMapPLUTO, BXMapPLUTO, BKMapPLUTO, SIMapPLUTO

  • States

• These layers will probably come with different names but you can rename them by right-clicking on them in the Layers Panel and selecting Rename.

• If when you zoom in to one of the layers some of its features disappear see the note at the end of the tutorial.

Basic Symbology

Symbology is one of the most important concepts in mapping. At its most basic level, symbology stands for changing the color, line weight, size or outline of a layer. However, and more importantly, it also means changing the appearance of a layer based on one or multiple of its attributes. In this tutorial we will do both, simple color changes and more advanced symbologies based on attributes.

As you may have seen, QGIS assigns random colors to each of the layers you add. To change the appearance of each layer do the following:

• First, since we are interested in creating a flood zone map of New York, you should zoom in into the one of the boroughs layer. To do this, right-click on one of the PLUTO layers and click Zoom to Layer. This is also very useful when for some reason you've panned away from your layers and you can't find them on your map. Just right-click on any of them and select Zoom to Layer to go back to them.



• There are multiple ways of changing the appearance of a layer. The easiest (and simplest) is to double-click on the icon (point, line or polygon) next to the layer name on the layer panel. This brings up the Style tab in the Layer Properties panel. In there you can change the fill (color), stroke weight and fill (outline) and the size of the icon (if using points or icons).



• In this panel change the style for the following layers in the following ways (we will leave the Hurricane Evacuation Zones for the end):

  • Boroughs:

    • Fill style: No Brush

    • Outline style: Solid Line

    • Outline width: 0.25

  • Hydrography:

    • Fill: #e6e6e6 (HTML notation)

    • Outline style: No Pen

  • Hydrography U.S.:

    • Fill: #e6e6e6 (HTML notation)

    • Outline style: No Pen

  • PLUTO:

    • Fill: #a6a6a6 (HTML notation)

    • Outline style: No Pen

  • State:

    • Fill: #ffffff (HTML notation)

    • Outline style: No Pen

• To change the appearance of the background, select the Project menu, and in there select Project Properties. Then, in the General tab you can change the Background color to #e6e6e6 (HTML notation).

Definition Queries

You will notice that as the map is, only the Bronx shows the Hurricane Evaluation Zones layer; the other boroughs are shaded in the same color that we gave the water layers. This is because they are actually covered by the Hydrography U.S. layer. Contrary to what one might think, this layer includes more than just water, it also includes islands, and since Manhattan, Queens, Brooklyn and Staten Island are in fact islands, they are included in this layer and shaded as if they were water.

However, this layer also includes a field identifying those features that are actually land, and we can use that field to filter out (hide) those features.

• First, to view the actual data associated with the features, right-click on the Hydrography U.S. layer and choose Open Attribute Table. Once table opens you will see the following fields: LANDCODE, DESCRIPT, NAVIGABLE, STFIPS, and STPOSTAL.



• The field LANDCODE is the one that will tell us whether a feature is land (1) or water (0).

• So, to only show the features that have a LANDCODE value of 0 you need to create a definition query. To do this, right-click on the Hydrography U.S. layer and choose Properties. In there, go to the General tab, and at the bottom of the panel click on Query Builder.

• In the query builder window you want to build an expression that says that only the fields with a LANDCODE value of 0 should be shown. To do this, double click on LANDCODE in the Fields panel so that it appears below where it says "Provide specific filter expression". Next, right there type = 0, so that the whole expression reads "LANDCODE" = 0.



• Once you click OK on your definition query panel you should see the Hydrology U.S. features disappear from Manhattan, Queens, Brooklyn and Queens and reveal the Hurricane Evacuation zones for these boroughs.

Classification by Categories

Finally, we will symbolize the Hurricane Evacuation Zones layer. However, since we want to differentiate between the different zones, instead of simply symbolizing the layer with one color, we will classify it based on different categories in its attribute table.

• First, right-click and open the layer's attribute table. There you will see a field called hurricane which contains a code for each of the six zones. This is the code we will use to symbolize the different evacuation zones. Close the attribute table.

• Just like for the other layers, right-click on the Hurricane Evacuation Zones layer and choose Properties. Go to the Style tab. Here, however, choose Categorized instead of Single symbol in the drop-down menu at the top.

• Next, choose the hurricane field in the Column option.

• Click on Classify to classify the data and display the different values. Here, QGIS goes through all the values in the attribute table for that particular field and assigns a color to each one of them. The default color assignment is random.

• Change the Color ramp to one of the ones that has a gradient and click on the Invert option to assign the darkest color to the lowest value.

• Now, deactivate the X category, since this one is actually not an evacuation zone.

• Finally, let's apply some transparency to the layer so you can see the blocks under the evacuation zones. To do this slide the Layer transparency slider to 20%.



• Click OK to close the properties panel.

Print Composer

The Print Composer is where you will format your map for its final output. Here you will specify the output size, you will add a legend, a scale bar, a north arrow (if needed) and any additional text (titles, sources, explanations and credits). Although the Print Composer exists as its own window it will still be linked to the map Project we have been working on.

• First, create a new Print Composer in Project, New Print Composer. Give it a custom name if you want, although this is not necessary.

• Once you are in the Print Composer you need to add a new map. Think of it as if you had a blank piece of paper and you were adding a window onto the map you've been working on. That window is a link to your Project and if you change things in the Project those changes will still be reflected in the Print Composer.

• To add a new map, click on the button Add new map on the left-hand panel and draw a rectangle on the blank page.



• Once you add the map you can adjust its size and position by dragging it from its corners.

• You might notice that if you change the size of the map it doesn't necessarily update. To avoid this, on the right-hand panel, where it says Main properties, click on Update preview. Or, you can also click on the drop-down menu where it says Cache and change it to Render so that it is constantly updating. For this map, though, since we are working with pretty large layers (ie. PLUTO) leave it on the Cache option.



• To move the content inside the Print Composer (as opposed to the whole page) use the Move item content tool on the left-hand panel.



• Next, you need to center and zoom in the map on the area you want to focus on. For the purposes of this tutorial, we will include the 5 boroughs. To do this, move the content of the map to this area and on the right-hand panel, under Main properties, adjust your Scale to 230,000.

• If any of the colors or line weights seem too big or two small or not correct, you can always go back to the Project and change them there. When you return to your Print Composer you can update your preview and the changes will be reflected.

• Add a scale bar by going to Layout Add scalebar and clicking on the map.

• The default scale bar is too big and has some values left of the zero. To change this, go to the right-hand panel, in the top part make sure you select the scale bar, and in the Segments section change the Segments to 'left 0'.

• You can also adjust the Height of the scale bar to 2mm.

• Under Fonts and colors change the values to:

• Font color: #4d4d4d

• Fill color: #4d4d4d

• Stroke color: #4d4d4d

• Inside the Font menu you can choose a different font and/or a smaller size.

• To add a legend click on Layout Add legend and then click on the map. You will notice that QGIS automatically puts an icon for every layer in the map. We only need the ones for the Hurricane Evacuation Zones, so we need to customize the legend:

• On the right-hand panel, under Legend items uncheck Auto update and then select the layers that you don't want in the legend and remove them with the 'minus' button. Do the same thing inside the Hurricane Evaluation Zones layer with the categories you don't want to display.

• Under Main properties, remove the 'Legend' in the Title field.

• Also, further down, uncheck the Background option.

• Since we did not rotate the map we don't need to add a north arrow. If you rotate your map you must add a north arrow. If you wanted to, you could add a north arrow by clicking on Layout Add arrow.

• Finally, to add a title and a 'source' text, click on the Add new label button on the left-hand panel and click on the map. Customize these labels by changing their color, size and location.

• The last step is to export the map as a .pdf file. Use the Export as PDF button on the top toolbar and save your map.

• Your final map should look something like this:

Note

If, after adding some dataset, you zoom in and some of the features disappear, you probably need to rebuild the dataset's "Spatial Index". To do this right-click on the layer, select Properties and go to General. Under Coordinate reference system click on Create spatial index. This should solve your problem. Sometimes, specially with the New York City PLUTO files, the "Spatial Index" is tied to one of the attribute fields and when you zoom in only the features with that specific attribute show up. "Spatial Index" are specially useful when doing operations over large datasets, for example see this post.