What is Appalachia?
TODO: Describe the ARC definition and where it comes from and how it might differ from other definitions of the region.
Spatial files
This package contains GeoJSON files useful for topical mapping.
Counties
counties.geojson
Congressional districts (114th congress district boundaries)
appalachia-congressional-districts-114.geojson
Node interface
This is really quickly written, not particularly performant, and hasn't been tested to work in the browser via Browserify. It's mostly useful as a convenience in other data processing scripts.
Check whether a congressional district is in Appalachia
var appalachia = require('appalachia');
var districtInAppalachia = appalachia.districtInAppalachia;
districtInAppalachia('MD', 8);
Technical details
To re-generate the GeoJSON file, you'll need:
- A computer running Mac OS X or Linux
- Node.js
- wget
- csvkit
First, clone the git repository for this project:
git clone https://github.com/ghing/appalachia.git
Change directory to the working copy of the project:
cd appalachia
Install Node.js developer dependencies:
npm install --dev
Run an npm script to download the source data, process it, and output the GeoJSON file:
npm run build
Installing system libraries
On some systems, you may have to install underlying libraries to build some of the Node dependencies.
For example, I've had to install Development files for International Components for Unicode:
sudo apt-get install libicu-dev
I've also had to install Geospatial Data Abstraction Library - Development files:
sudo apt-get install libgdal-dev
TODO: Document commands needed to install these libraries with Homebrew.
Data sources
- Appalachia Subregions
- URL: https://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.arc.gov/assets/maps/related/Subregions_2009_Data.xls
- Agency: Appalachian Regional Commission