{"id":12392,"date":"2016-10-09T04:23:48","date_gmt":"2016-10-09T09:23:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gisgeography.com\/?p=12392"},"modified":"2025-03-31T06:38:22","modified_gmt":"2025-03-31T11:38:22","slug":"flow-maps","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gisgeography.com\/flow-maps\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Create Flow Maps with Directional Lines"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"Flow<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Show the Movement of “Anything”<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

How would you show the movement of people, money, energy, or almost anything from one location to another? The best answer is using flow maps<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Flow maps denote the direction a phenomenon is being moved from one location to another.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Generally speaking, flow maps can be divided as radial, network, and distributive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We’ve already explained how to create cartogram maps<\/a>. Now, here are some insights on how to produce flow maps of your own.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

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1. Radial Flow Maps<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

In radial flow maps, lines radiate from an origin node to a single or multiple destination nodes. Each hub links that movement of a phenomenon with a directional flow line, often in a radial pattern.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In this example, we use the United States foreign trade<\/a> census data. Essentially, this displays what, where, and how much the United States exports to other countries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The FlowMapper plugin<\/a> for QGIS is a quick and easy way to generate flow maps of your own. When you download the plugin, it comes with test data that you can use as a template. But essentially, it boils down to these two text files as inputs:<\/p>\n\n\n\n