gridmappr: An R package for creating small multiple gridmap layouts

cartograms
glyphs
gridmaps
R packages
origin-destination
flow maps

Roger Beecham,Martijn Tennekes and Jo Wood (2025) “gridmappr: An R package for creating small multiple gridmap layouts”, Environment & Planning B: Urban Analytics and City Science, doi: 10.1177/23998083251374737

Authors
Affiliations

School of Geography, University of Leeds

Martijn Tennekes

Statistics Netherlands, The Hague, Netherlands

Jo Wood

City St. George’s, University of London

Published

September 2025

Doi

Abstract

We present gridmappr, an R package that automates the process of generating gridmaps – small multiple data graphics of regular size, laid out with an approximate geographic arrangement. Given a set of real geographic point locations, gridmappr allocates points to a regularly sized grid of stated row–column dimensions. This allocation is constrained such that the distance between points in real and grid space is minimised and with a parameter that affects how compactly points are allocated to the regular grid. For geographies with features such as large bodies of water, fixed spacers can be introduced – reserved cells that cannot be allocated points. Layout examples are presented using different parameterisations, and code for generating a family of information-rich glyphmap and origin-destination maps is demonstrated using standard ggplot2.

Important figure

Figure 1. Candidate gridmap layouts and displacement vectors for France’s 96 départements.

BibTeX citation

@article{beecham_gridmappr_2025,
    author = {Roger Beecham and Martijn Tennekes and Jo Wood},
    doi = {10.1177/23998083251374737},
    publisher={Environment and Planning B: Urban Analytics and City Science},
    title={gridmappr: An R package for creating small multiple gridmap layouts},
  volume = {},
  number = {},
  pages = {},
    year = {2025}
    }