A brief comparison of the region with national figures and geographies provides some context to the report and the bearing of the Auckland region on national figures. This section also introduces the cartogram as a more representative alternative to traditional thematic population mapping.
New Zealand’s population is very unevenly distributed as shown in Figure 1. The main features are arable land (light yellow), and large towns or cities (brown). The remaining grey areas are dominated by parks, wilderness, and forestry areas. While the Auckland (ARPHS) region as shown in the insert represents only 2% of the total New Zealand land area it contains a third of the country’s population.
Presenting population summary figures on a standard thematic (choropleth) map such as the insert in Figure 2 has the general effect of obscuring small highly densely areas. In choropleth mapping the size of an area generally has no bearing on the information presented, yet large areas naturally dominate. Furthermore large areas that are at the extremes of a legend (usually very light or dark coloured) tend to be misinterpreted as being the most significant features on the map.
