Statistics to shades in a world map

Question

Is there any API or web service to create statistical world maps where the values are different shades of a colour?

Something like http://www.visualizingeconomics.com/wp-content/uploads/sachs-gdpdensity.png

Answer 1

Any basic GIS software will do the trick if you have the proper geographic layers.

• QGIS would be a good and simple to use tool
• There are a lot of World GIS maps out there (the conventional format is usually .shp)
• Shp files are a group of 4 or more files with the same name but with different file extensions.
• You'll edit the data in QGIS and add your field either based on an equation or inputed data.

Answer 2

Google Charts has an API just for that. There's a 'map' type of chart

Google Charts - Maps - API

You will need to pass in at least 2 params.

CHD = that's your values for say "population" - 100, 300, 700, whatever. And

CHO = That's your start and end color values (say red and green) and the API will do the rest.

In the link above, search for "This map demonstrates using color gradients." and you'll see a basic example.

-Vadim