Interactive Mapping

A powerful yet easy to use system of connecting spreadsheets to colour and label polygon maps is now available in our Dynamic Mapping Suite, and it costs only a very modest £35 to use.

Currently available for dynamically colouring and captioning from spreadsheet:

• Postcode Districts
• Postcode Sectors
• Ceremonial Counties
• Counties and Unitary Authorities
• Local Authorities

See a live example of a postcode district polygons map connected to a spreadsheet and learn more about mapping from spreadsheets.

The Office for National Statistics has started to release data from the Census 2021. Below are some interactive England and Wales population maps that users can freely use on their own websites. Or commission us to create maps like these using other census data or marrying up census figures with your own data.

Hover or tap different parts of the maps for data interaction

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Mapbox – our favourite dynamic mapping base system – released a new system based on Maxar satellite imagery last year, whereby geospatial developers such as us can tap into elevation and projection for satellite views layered with our own points, lines and polygons. We have experimented with the new 3d system in conjunction with our own techniques developed for listing and filtering, and come up with a rather sublime demo using data from The Database of British and Irish Hills.

Open full-size dynamic mountains map

Learn more about how we feed data to dynamic maps like this on the 3d mountains exploration demo page.

At Maproom we build most of our interactive web maps on a Mapbox base. We also sometimes use Google Maps as a base. Both systems have their merits and weaknesses; both charge fees for high usage; and both are in a constant state of development and competition with each other and the smaller players on the dynamic mapping scene. Here’s a current comparison of Mapbox and Google Maps.

System	Pros	Cons
Mapbox – used to power reference maps in our Dynamic Mapping Suite	Far more customisable than Google Maps Cheaper than Google Maps for high traffic Various ways to handle large data feeds	No Streetview Mediocre search Not the highest resolution for satellite maps
Google Maps – used by us for some bespoke dynamic maps requiring Streetview or the highest resolution satellite imagery of London	Streetview and the best search of all mapping systems	Completely unable to handle advance styling or large data feeds

Usage

All web maps built with Mapbox and Google Maps are metered for usage. Usage means the number of times per month that a Google Map or Mapbox map is loaded. If, say, your website has a page with a Google Map embedded on it, the number of hits that page gets each month will count as the load.

Free tiers

Currently at the time of writing, the free threshold traffic for Google Maps is up to 28,500 loads per month, and for Mapbox it is up to 50,000 loads per month.

The majority of websites fall well below these thresholds and thus have free usage of the Google Maps and Mapbox bases upon which Maproom builds dynamic maps.

However, organisations with busy websites need to know about possible charges!

High traffic charges

(As at June 2022)

System	Costs per 1,000 Monthly Map Loads
Mapbox	FREE up to 50,000 monthly map loads and 100,000 monthly search terms $5 per 1,000 from 50,001 – 100,000 loads $4 per 1,000 from 100,001 – 200,000 loads $3 per 1,000 from 200,001 – 1,000,000 loads negotiable from 1,000,000+ loads More details at Mapbox pricing
Google Maps	FREE up to 28,500 monthly map loads $7 per 1,000 above 28,500 map loads $14 per 1,000 for Street View $5 per 1,000 search terms More details at Google Maps pricing

If we hadn’t been so busy with the pandemic and Brexit-related work in 2020, we would have launched the new Quick Select editing system months ago! Anyhow, it’s finally landed – the ability to colour your postcode maps simply with point and click colouring. The system is available with a premium pass for our Dynamic Mapping Suite.

Go to the live demo of the Quick Select system to try out the tools.

We’ve been busy in lockdown and built a wonderful interactive map of listed buildings in England.

The first thing we did after flowing in the data was to look up listed buildings in our own neighbourhood. What will you find in your own areas of interest?

The map is a demo of how we can create a wonderfully detailed online map using a large dataset. Learn more