Looking for mapping advice

[EugeneQuigley]

I've been charged with creating maps for a document concerning Ecological Land Classification. The final product will probably be produced on a letter size page.The mapping will be done at an ecodistrict level but will show lower level ecosections, forest communities, watersheds, geology, soils, etc. My problem arises where a couple of ecodistricts have an unusual shape. In one case the ecodistrict stretches 200 kilometers but is only about 10 kilometers wide.

I'm looking for some cartographic advice so that I can map the ecodistrict and the user will be able to get something out of it. I'm thinking I might clip the Ecodistrict into chunks and display in several figures (west, central, eastern) at a scale that makes sense.

Basically I'm just asking for advice on how others have dealt with or would tackle a similar situation.

Thanks in advance,

Eugene

[TimWitt2]

Eugene,

why not create a map book

With this you can divide odd shapes like this into grids.

Check it out ArcGIS Help 10.1

Tim

[EugeneQuigley]

Hi Tim,

I've actually created an Ecological Land Classification mapbook for Nova Scotia a few years ago and it worked well but I mapped the whole province at 1: 150 000 using a legal landscape (8.5" x 14") format. This document will be a lot more text focused and the figures are just the "eye candy" but I want them to be of some use.

Thanks for the suggestion!

[TimWitt2]

As you mentioned in your first post, clipping would be my choice.

[ChrisDonohue__GISP]

For the "long and thin" shapes one could use multiple data frames on each layout.  For example, we had an ecological risk assessment for a proposed pipeline where we had 4 data frames on each page.  This allowed us to effectively show the pipeline corridor and the ecology/species near it that were at risk.

Chris Donohue, GISP