Thailand Land Cover
October 2009The land cover is hand-generalized, based on an extremely overdetailed vector file. That’s the second image here. I simply drew new polygons over it, eyeballing the general extent of forest, and areas where I thought forest and agriculture were fairly mixed.
When I lecture introductory cartography, I sometimes use this project as an example of how too much detail gets in the way of interpretation, and how we can clarify patterns by eliminating data. Generalization brings clarity.
![](https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/7c6acf7dd45cfa226916e86f9651a6f12e74821cb6096cf7e9b171f40185c5b5/Thailand-LC-01.jpg)
![](https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/a81784bb7fcac2ec9249e6ad2a83c64fbebf3a498dbcf879a570eb90ac78dd0d/LC-Original.jpg)