Here's how to sweep away the bias of actual geographic shapes for a sortofmap sortofachart beautiful abomination called a cartogram. This form is based on a hexagon shape: each state is a hexagon. They're generally arranged true to their locations but cartograms don't get too worked up about that sort of thing. They help you visualize general geographic trends without the complexity of realgeography getting in the way of communicating a phenomenon.

0:00 Rapturous intro
0:23 Creating a hexagonal tessellation
0:57 Selecting state hexagons
1:22 Adding state name attribute
1:54 Fiftyone personal anecdotes...you should skip this
9:00 Joining data to the hexagons
9:47 Graduated symbols
11:18 Adding coollooking lighting
13:27 New chickens join the Nelsons

Here's the hexagon layer: https://esriismy.sharepoint.com/:u:/...

If you want to learn more about thematic mapping, using election data, with lots of cartogram examples, check out this book from my colleague Kenneth Field: https://www.amazon.com/ThematicMappi...

Check out some other social channels where I share howto's and updates on random map adventures:

http://adventuresinmapping.com
https://www.esri.com/arcgisblog/auth...
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