Maps
Hexbin / hexagonal aggregation map
Aggregates locations or values into hexagonal geographic bins.
- Map
- Geography
- Aggregation
What it answers
How do quantities vary across equal grid cells?
- Shape
- Hexagonal spatial cells
- What it shows
- Local concentrations and gradients.
Example
The question
Where do online orders come from, in even-sized areas?
Online orders per hexagon, 2025 (hexbin map)
Illustrative data. It belongs to no company.
When to use it
Use it when
Spatial comparison without administrative-boundary variation.
Avoid it when
When cell resolution or projection is unspecified.
How to read it
Read hexagon location and the aggregate legend.
Note
Specify resolution and the statistic encoded.
The data you need
- Layout
- Long table
- Fields
- LocationID: text; Longitude,Latitude: numbers; Value: nonnegative number
- One row is
- One point location and its value or weight. What is the grain?
- Rules
- State CRS. For WGS84, longitude is [-180,180] and latitude [-90,90]. Validate coordinate order.
- Optional
- For unweighted density, each point may have weight 1. Project coordinates appropriately for distance calculations.
- Preparation
- Validate the input grain and missing values. State CRS. For WGS84, longitude is [-180,180] and latitude [-90,90]. Validate coordinate order.
- Units
- Count, sum, rate or density percell must be labelled; density divides by cell area.
Worked example
Two hexagons contain 30 and 5 events. At the same resolution, the first has six times the count.
| LocationID | Longitude | Latitude | Value |
|---|---|---|---|
| A | 18.07 | 59.33 | 30 |
| B | 11.97 | 57.71 | 45 |