COLOR AND SYMBOLOGY BY HOLLYBANJ

CHANGING COLORS OF LAYERS

Open an arcmap document. Click add data button , navigate to ESRIDATA. Double click world,
hold crtl key down and click cities, country, lakes and rivers.

Click add. To change the color for cities, right click on the point under cities (point is in green circle)

, pick a color of your choice. To change color for rivers, right click the line under rivers

(line is in green color), pick a color of your choice. To change color for lakes, right click the

polygon under lakes , pick a color of your choice. To change country color, right click on

the polygon under country , pick a color of your choice.

THE SECOND WAY OF CHANGING COLOR IS;

Click on the point under cities , a dialogue box appears

Pick a symbol style of your choice. You can also change color under color, increase or reduce size
under size. If you want your symbol to tilt at an angle, put an angle value under angle. To get
specialised symbols for your professional field, click on style reference and you can check the field
you want.
e.g I check business and I click ok. Symbols associated with business are added to the options of
symbols
Click ok when you have finished modifying the point.
To change symbol for river, click on the line under river (line is in red circle), a dialogue
box appears. Under the styles, you will see a style for rivers, click on it.

You can increase or reduce line thickness under width. Click ok.
Click on the polygon under lakes (polygon is in red circle). Under style, you will see the lake
symbol, click on it.

Click ok.

To change the style for country, click the polygon under country (polygon is in red
color), under fill color, you can choose a color of your choice. You can also change the outline color
and outline width. For instance, make the outline width 2 and change outline color to red. Click ok.
Did you notice the effect of the changes you made on your map?

SYMBOLOGY

Symbology is used to show spatial variations and distributions on a map using color and symbols.

There are 5 types of attribute.

Features; this is using a single color and symbol to represent a feature or layer on a map.

Categories; this is using unique color and symbols to represent features on a map. The attribute
involved are not countable. E.g. soil types, road types
Quantities; this is using color and symbols to represent features that are countable on a map. E.g.
population, election vote etc.

Chart; this is using charts and graph to represent features on a map.

Multiple attribute; this is using color and symbol to represent more than one feature on a map.

Right click on cities, open attribute table. Notice the columns on the attribute table, FID, shape,
name, country, population, capital. These are the information available to the cities layer. For
example, we want to show a map of population for cities. What we do is this;

Right click on cities in the table of content, click properties, click symbology tab

What method are we going to use? We want to show population. The first question we ask ourself
is, is it countable? The answer is YES. So we would make use of quantities.

Click quantities, click graduated symbol (we use graduated symbol because it works like this the
bigger the value, the bigger the size of the symbol). Under fields, change value from none to
population. Under classes, you can change it from 5 which is arcmap default to as many classes as
you want.

Click ok.
The cities with small population have small size and the cities with large population have large size.
To know the exact class a cities fall into, you look at the symbol legend under cities in the table of
content.

Right click on country, click open attribute table to check the attribute of the layer.

Among the attributes, we have population of country. We would be showing map of country
population. The first question is, is it countable? population is countable and quantifiable.
Right click on country, click properties, click symbology tab

Click graduated colors (which is as the value changes, the color changes), change value to pop_cntry
(which is the population data. You can also modify the number of classes you want under classes.
Click ok. To see the country clearly, uncheck the cities layer. What do you see?
The color legend under country explains the population distribution.

Now we want to show a map of capital and non-capital cities. Right click on cities, click properties,
click symbology tab. Capital attribute is not countable. It is categorised into unique values Y (which is
yes) and N (which is no). click categories, change the value field from NAME to CAPITAL. At the
bottom of the dialogue box, click add all values. Uncheck the all other value box.

Click ok. Edit the colors of the legend such that it would be clear. Right click on the point in front of N

, click a blue color. Right click on the point in front of Y , click a red
color. Your map becomes something like this

Now we would like to show countries that are landlocked and not landlocked. Right click on country,
click properties, click symbology, click categories, change the value field to LANDLOCKED. At the
bottom of the dialogue box, click add all values, ucheck the box in front of all other values. Click ok.

Right click on the color in front of N , pick a blue color. Click on the color in front

of Y , pick a red color. The countries in red are the landlocked countries i.e. they
have other countries as border on everyside. The dont have a border with any ocean of the world.

TO USE CHART TO REPRESENT SPATIAL DISTRIBUTION

Click file, click new, click ok for a blank map, click No if you dont want to save map document, click
Yes if you want to save map document. I click No. click add data , navigate to Nigeria folder,
click Delta_lga.shp,

click add. Right click on Delta_lga in the table of content, click open attribute table. View the
information available in the Delta_lga.shp.

close the table. Right click on Delta_lga in the table of content, click properties, click symbology tab,
click chart, click bar/column. Under field selection, scroll down to age 0_14 and send it forward using

the forward button . Click the age_15_64, send it forward using the forward button .

Click the age_65_, send it forward using the forward button . Right click on the color in front

of each age range an dpick the colors red, green, blue respectively ,
, Click ok. You map looks like this;
To change the symbol back to a single feature, right click on Delta_lga, click properties, click features

Click ok.