Thematic cartography as an optimal resource for understanding the COVID-19 pandemic: Example of application in Spain

Abstract

The Covid-19 pandemic has been a phenomenon of extraordinary significance due to its unfortunate impact on the high loss of human life and the perverse social and economic effects caused throughout the world. There are numbers of international organizations, and also in each country, that have uses cartographic resources to show its origin, diffusion and effects, the results being widely disseminated in the media. Cartography offers many possibilities to the user because can enter into an intelligent dialogue with the map in which, surely, will discover new nuances and, above all, will be able to formulate well-founded hypotheses that support future specific investigations. In Spain, a collaborative cartographic project has been developed between the National Geographic Institute and the Spanish Association of Geography, which has resulted in the publication of an Atlas on Covid-19 pandemic in Spain. This article is divided into five sections which cover conceptual and methodological aspects in elaboration of this Atlas; comparative analysis of international examples of Covid-19 mapping; and presentation examples of maps that make up this monograph Atlas.