User:Serolhak/sandbox/The case for choropleth maps on Wikipedia election articles

This page makes the case for choropleth maps on Wikipedia election articles. "Choropleth" means "cluster zones". A Choropleth map is a map that uses different hues of the same color, for the clustered variable.

1. In the first part, we argue why Wikipedians should embrace this type of map for most areas.
2. In the second part, we provide an almost comprehensive, and up-to-date gallery of choropleth maps used on Wikipedia, and a commentary of each author's methods.

The problem, the examples, the solutions

What is the problem on Wikipedia?

Typically, election maps on Wikimedia Commons and Wikipedia display the jurisdiction's constituencies ("districts", "ridings", "wards", etc.) colored by the party that won it. This makes perfect sense: under Plurality (First-past-the-post), whoever tops the district, gets the seat.

However, under the various forms of Proportional Representation, no-one "wins" a district: districts are multi-member, and coming first is no more meaningful than coming second, only the share of votes is (which by design gives the share of seats).

As a reminder, PR methods are in use in:

• almost all of continental Europe and Latin America, in elections of legislative assemblies (exceptions: the French Parliament, the Polish and Czech Senates, and a number of countries using FPTP in parallel with PR seats).
• in English-speaking countries, this includes: the lower houses of Ireland, Northern Ireland (STV), New Zealand, Scotland, Wales (MMP), and the upper houses of Australia.

(That is, in summary, most liberal democracies and jurisdictions!)

As the examples below show, using maps of district winners for PR elections has many shortcomings:

• lack of information provided:
  • in a two-party system, a big *victory for one party is a big loss for the other ; but in a multi-party PR system, it is impossible to tell with a district winner map, areas in which the party came second, from areas where it is completely excluded
  • in PR, district victory is arbitrary: the party coming first may have received as little as 20%, and may be followed by a series of like-minded parties that collectively outweigh the first party in the district
• meaninglessness:
  • due to Duverger's Law, PR methods tend to increase the number of parties in competition, division being much less detrimental ; but this doesn't mean there can't be pre-declared left-right alliances, which in this case is the meaningful division to show
  • under FPTP, parties tend to be catch-all parties ; under PR, coalitions may be formed after the election and can aggregate catch-all parties with smaller parties appealing to a fraction of the electorate, and sometimes one-issue parties
• lack of legibility:
  • the number of colors needed in a multi-party system makes maps uneasy to read and of little use

Illustrating the absurdity

Most electoral maps on Wikipedia show district winners even under Proportional Representation, despite it is in such case meaningless, potentially deceptive for election analyses, and illegible overall:

• 
  1972 Dutch general election, 7 parties shown out of 14, missing the meaningful left (PvdA-PPR-D66) and right (KVP-APR-CHU) alliances
• 
  2018 Latvian parliamentary election, with 7 different parties
• 
  2019 Belgian regional elections, with 8 parties and unnecessary hues
• 
  2019 Moldovan parliamentary election, 4 parties
• 
  2021 Scottish Parliament election, 4 parties with unnecessary hues for constituencies, but would've been very useful in a map of the regional vote
• 
  2022 Finnish county elections, 11 parties of which 8 top at least one district, with 7 hues each. Only problem is that these districts do not matter at all.
• 
  2007 Estonian parliamentary election, 5 parties with 4 to 6 hues each

Some designers prefer to color small dots or squares representing seats, instead of representing zones. Their legibility is questionable:

• 
  2022 Finnish county elections, 1379 squares, with colors for 7 middle parties, 2 minor parties + 1 locally major one
• 
  2016 Irish general election, 158 dots
• 
  2015 Polish parliamentary election, 460 dots -- can you distinguish Poland A and B?
• 
  1998 Northern Ireland Assembly election, 108 dots -- at which size can you distinguish the clear-cut sectarian boundaries?
• 
  2018 Slovenian parliamentary election, 88 dots -- can you guess where's Ljubljana and where's the countryside?

Solutions

If one wants to analyze an election under PR, then one should better use party-specific choropleth maps, which use hue progression to show the varying degrees of success in the various districts. The degrees should be divided in 4 or 5 natural breaks (Jenks): this method allows readers to extract the most meaning (unlike arbitrary intervals, or standard deviation) while staying very close to the distribution of data.

I have often seen these maps in use by political pundits, "psephologist"s, and sociologists in continental Europe, in particular France and Germany. The English Wikipedia is largely written by users who do not live in countries using PR, and this probably explains why it hasn't caught up on that particular custom of political science in non-English-speaking countries.

As a sidenote, it could be argued that chorochromatic maps would be more accurate than choropleth ones, especially when a state has districts with largely unpopulated areas, such as the Australian Outback (for upper house elections), the Scandinavian polar circle, the Kazakh Steppe, Russian Siberia etc.

Gallery of choropleth maps

Here's a list of choropleth election maps posted on Wikimedia:

Bulgaria

An outstanding map made in 2021 by User:Ivonster04. Uses 5 hues with a rough clustering adapted to each party, that works very well. With maps like this you can understand Bulgarian politics very quickly!

Beautiful summary of the April 2021 Bulgarian parliamentary election

Czechia

Czech Wikipedia User MrGreg has created about a hundred maps, solely for Czech elections (legislative since 1992, presidential runoffs since 2013).

• For legislative elections, he always uses the same scale of 8 hues, each corresponding to 5% intervals (range [0-5;35-40]). In some cases he has to manually label districts that are above 40%.
• For presidential run-off elections, he also uses 8 hues but with a larger interval of 10% (range [<20;>80]).

He also has two maps of district turnout variations, using 9 hues corresponding to 2.5% intervals [<-10;>10], and two maps of district turnout, using the range of presidential run-off elections.

All in all, they are very legible, and provide immediate insight of each party's strong areas.

• 
  Andrej Babiš 2023
• 
  Petr Pavel 2023
• 
  Miloš Zeman 2018
• 
  Jiří Drahoš 2018
• 
  SPOLU 2021
• 
  ANO 2021
• 
  PirSTAN 2021
• 
  SPD 2021
• 
  Přísaha 2021
• 
  KSČM 2021
• 
  ČSSD 2021
• 
  ČSSD 2017
• 
  ČSSD 2013
• 
  ČSSD 2010

Complete gallery of MrGreg's maps

Presidential elections Volba 2023 Andrej Babiš Andrej Babiš Černobíle Černobíle Petr Pavel Petr Pavel Černobíle Černobíle Volba 2018 Miloš Zeman Černobíle Jiří Drahoš Černobíle Volba 2013 Miloš Zeman Černobíle Karel Schwarzenberg Černobíle Legislative elections Volby 2021 Volební účast Rozdíl volební účasti SPOLU ANO PirSTAN SPD Přísaha ČSSD KSČM Volby 2017 Volební účast Rozdíl volební účasti ANO ODS Piráti SPD KSČM ČSSD KDU-ČSL TOP 09 STAN Volby 2013 ČSSD ANO KSČM TOP 09 ODS Úsvit KDU-ČSL Volby 2010 ČSSD ODS TOP 09 KSČM VV Volby 2006 ODS ČSSD KSČM KDU-ČSL SZ Volby 2002 ČSSD ODS KSČM Čtyřkoalice (KDU-ČSL) Volby 1998 ČSSD ODS KSČM KDU-ČSL US mimoparlamentní: mimoparlamentní: SPR-RSČ Volby 1996 ODS ČSSD KSČM KDU-ČSL SPR-RSČ ODA Volby 1992 ODS+KDS Levý blok ČSSD LSU KDU-ČSL SPR-RSČ ODA HSD-SMS

Finland

Made by commons:User:Stadscykel in 2011. Used 5% intervals (except for the first 10 percent, and the last interval), which means there were from 7 to 10 hues for the 4 bigger parties. Did not contribute later. PS 2015 was made by commons:User:URunICon.

• 
  Kok 2011 (20.4%)
• 
  SDP 2011 (19.1%)
• 
  Kesk 2011 (15.8%)
• 
  PS 2011 (19.1%)
• 
  PS 2015 (17.7%)

See also: commons:Maps of Finland - general elections by year and party.

Germany

de:User:Wahlatlas, apparently the owner of the website of the same name, made these wonderful maps, with 5 degrees and (seemingly) natural breaks.

• 
  CDU-CSU 2013
• 
  SPD 2013
• 
  Grüne 2013
• 
  Linke 2013
• 
  FDP 2013
• 
  AfD 2013
• 
  Piraten 2013
• 
  NPD 2013

• 
  CDU-CSU 2017
• 
  SPD 2017
• 
  AfD 2017
• 
  Grüne 2017
• 
  FDP 2017
• 
  Linke 2017
• 
  NPD 2017
• 
  Turnout 2017

User:Furfur made these maps for the 2009 election. The number of intervals range from 4 to 9 (!) because of the 5%-interval chosen arbitrarily.

• 
  CDU-CSU 2009
• 
  SPD 2009
• 
  FDP 2009
• 
  Grüne 2009
• 
  Linke 2009
• 
  Piraten 2009

User:Hilarus von Baerenstein uploaded just one beautiful map, with 6 intervals adapted to each party chosen manually:

• 
  1990 Volkskammer election

Here, the use of hues for different intervals provides many clues to our understanding of Germany before WWII:

• 
  NSDAP 1933, by User:Korny78 in 2007
• 
  NSDAP 1933, by User:Dove in 2008, re-colored by User:Furfur in 2015

Ireland (Republic of)

Outstanding maps were made by User:JandK87 for Ireland's Dail elections (since 1921) and Northern Assembly (since 1973). However, he stopped editing after 2011, came back for the 2016 election, and never edited again. It turns out that another user made and imposed his own maps starting in 2011, where seats won are shown as tiny dots on a dark grey map. see Category:Election maps of the Republic of Ireland on Commons

• 
  1921
• 
  1922
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  1923
• 
  Jun 1927
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  Sep 1927
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  1932
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  1933
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  1937
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  1938
• 
  1943
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  1944
• 
  1948
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  1951
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  1954
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  1957
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  1961
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  1965
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  1969
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  1973
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  1977
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  1981
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  Feb 1982
• 
  Nov 1982
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  1987
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  1989
• 
  1992
• 
  1997
• 
  2007
• 
  2011 (not used) [1]
• 
  2016 (not used) [2]
• 
  2020 (missing)

Ireland (Northern)

• 
  1973
• 
  1975 (Constitutional Convention)
• 
  1982
• 
  1998
• 
  2003
• 
  2007
• 
  2011
• 
  2016
• 
  2016 (by commons:User:沁水湾)
• 
  2017
• 
  2022

Made by User:RaviC:

• 
  Northern Ireland Conservatives in 2015

Japan

commons:User:沁水湾 made many electoral maps, including one that defines as a choropleth map using 5 hues:

• 
  1942 Japanese general election: Taisei Yokusankai

In 2022, she crafted 7 maps for the 2021 Japanese general election, one for each party that won seats through the PR method:

• 
  Liberal Democratic Party, PR vote share 2021
• 
  Constitutional Democratic Party, PR vote share 2021
• 
  Nippon Ishin no Kai, PR vote share 2021
• 
  Kōmeitō, PR vote share 2021
• 
  Japanese Communist Party, PR vote share 2021
• 
  Democratic Party for the People, PR vote share 2021
• 
  Reiwa Shinsengumi, PR vote share 2021

...she even added them on the election page with a switcher!

Kazakhstan

commons:User:ShadZ01 recently produced these awesome maps of the most recent Kazakh elections (2019 and 2021). There are 4 intervals for the minor parties and 5 for the dominant party, which makes sense. The ranges do not seem to be broken with a statistical tool, but rather manually. No legend whatsoever is included; it has to be written somewhere else.

Although this map is quite old, it remains that Kazakhstan's peculiar population density would make the case for the use of Chorochromatic maps (using the data patterns) rather than choropleth (using political boundaries)

• 
  2019 Kazakh presidential election
• 
  NO 2021

2021 Kazakh legislative election:

Performance by Nur Otan by region.
     0–55%          55–60%        60–65%
     70–75%        75–80%

Performance by the Ak Zhol Democratic Party by region.
     8–10%          10–12%        12–14%
     14–16%

Performance by the People's Party by region.
     0–5%          5–10%        10–15%
     15–17%

Performance by the Auyl People's Democratic Patriotic Party by region.
     0–4%          4–8%        8–12%
     12–13%

Performance by Adal by region.
     0–2%          2–4%        4–6%
     6–7%

Korea (Republic of)

made by commons:User:沁水湾

• 
  Sim Sang-jung 2022 (2.38%), using 12 hues (!)

Netherlands

• 
  Areas where the Dutch Christian right Reformed Political Party (SGP) received a significant number of votes in 2010, largely co-extensive with the Dutch Bible Belt.
• 
  SGP 2003, using 5%-intervals (7 in total)

Nepal

Made by commons:User:Vanished user 1932142 in 2020. Used 6 hues, corresponding to 3-percent-intervals:

Congress at the 2017 provincial elections

Poland

Made by Robert Wielgórski, known by the username Barry Kent (commons) (also wp:pl wp:en) right after the 2007 elections. He made use of varying interval numbers and lengths for each party.

• 
  PO 2007
• 
  PSL 2007
• 
  PO+PSL 2007
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  PK 2007
• 
  Turnout 2007
• 
  Wahlkomitee in the Voivodeship of Opole

Portugal

• 
  CDU 2005 (jpg)
• 
  CDU 2005 (svg)
• 
  2019 Portuguese legislative election: parties to the left of PS (BE, CDU, LIVRE)
• 
  PS 2022 (de facto a party-specific chropleth map, except for Azores)

User:Welkend (commons) has just made awesome maps for the 2022 Portuguese legislative election, using 5 intervals for each party. Intervals are all of equal size (except PS's first one?) which highlights voter concentration:

• 
  Share of the Socialist Party (PS) by municipality
• 
  Share of the Social Democratic Party (PSD) by municipality
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  Share of CHEGA (CH) by municipality
• 
  Share of the Liberal Initiative (IL) by municipality
• 
  Share of the Left Bloc (BE) by municipality
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  Share of the Unitary Democratic Coalition (CDU) by municipality
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  Share of the CDS-People's Party (CDS-PP) by municipality
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  Share of the People–Animals–Nature (PAN) by municipality
• 
  Share of the Livre (L) by municipality

Scandinavia: Sweden, Norway, Denmark

Sweden

Several interesting maps were done by User:Avopeas who was mostly active in 2017, and blanked his talk page in 2019. He is still active on commons (User page) where he updates average polling graphs for Scandinavian countries.

Christian Democrats results in the 2014 Swedish general election. The Christian Democrats obtained considerable support in the Christian area in southern Sweden.

• (+) we can clearly see the best and worst areas for each party
• (-) All the maps use the same orange tone.
• (-) More problematic, the maps use 14 equal intervals and different hues! Impossible to process quickly.
• (-) the equal intervals are not adapted to each party (ranges are too large for smaller parties, too small for larger ones)

The author did much better with this map of population density, although the intervals are quite arbitrary.

2014 Swedish general election § Results by municipality

• 
  Social Democratic
• 
  Moderate
• 
  Sweden Democrats
• 
  Green
• 
  Centre
• 
  Left
• 
  Liberal People's Party
• 
  Christian Democrats
• 
  Feminist Initiative
• 
  Shaded, red (S+V+MP) to blue (M+C+FP+KD)

Results of the 2018 Swedish general election

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  Social Democratic
• 
  Moderate Party
• 
  Sweden Democrats
• 
  Centre Party
• 
  Left Party
• 
  Christian Democrats
• 
  Liberals
• 
  Green
• 
  Shaded, red (S+V+MP) to blue (M+C+KD+L)

2002 Swedish general election and 2006 Swedish general election (the two blocs received >97%):

• 
  Votes by municipality as a scale from red/Left-wing bloc to blue/Centre-right bloc.
• 
  Votes by municipality as a scale from red/Red-green bloc to blue/Alliance for Sweden.

Feminist Initiative and Sweden Democrats:

• 
  FI 2014-6
• 
  FI 2014-9
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  SD 2002
• 
  SD 2006
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  SD 2010
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  SD 2014
• 
  SD 2018

Norway

2017 Norwegian parliamentary election.

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  Labour
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  Conservative
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  Progress
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  Centre
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  Socialist
• 
  Liberal
• 
  Christian
• 
  Green
• 
  Red

2021 Norwegian parliamentary election.

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  Labour
• 
  Conservative
• 
  Centre
• 
  Progress
• 
  Socialist Left
• 
  Red
• 
  Liberal
• 
  Green
• 
  Christian Democratic
• 
  Patient Focus

Denmark

Denmark 2015 (blocs)

User:Gust Justice made these maps for the 2022 Danish general election. It was embedded in the main page using a switcher template. His work is remarkable

• it is comprehensive: all 14 registered parties, have got a map of their own, as well as independent candidates. (At this point the only missing map is the turnout rate, which brings hidden clues to light about the unspoken.)
• there is a limited and regular number of hues: always set to 5.

The clustering algorithm is unknown but the result appears to be balanced, except.

Slovakia and others

Australian User:Erinthecute, who has made countless illustration maps for election pages on Wikipedia, recently began to notice the usefulness of choropleth maps, beginning with Slovakia, the city of Graz (see § Cities) and Portugal. She is using 4 to 6 hues by party, usually 5:

• 
  2016 Slovak parliamentary election
• 
  2020 Slovak parliamentary election

commons:User:Liqid1010 made a handful of maps following the 2020 Slovak parliamentary election, using nine 5%-intervals.

• 
  OĽaNO & allies 2020 (25.03%)
• 
  SMER-SD 2020 (18.29%)
• 
  Sme Rodina 2020 (8.24%)
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  ĽSNS 2020 (7.97%)
• 
  PS-SPOLU 2020 (6.97%)
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  SaS 2020 (6.22%)
• 
  ZĽ 2020 (5.77%)
• 
  MKS 2020 (3.91%)

sk:User:Mikulas1 crafted many maps in 2017, but sadly, stopped contributing. His maps, using for each party a variable number of (mostly) 5%-intervals, have not yet been integrated into Wikipedia's English articles on Slovak parties and elections:

• 
  SMER-SD 2010 (18.29%)
• 
  SDKÚ-DS 2010 (15.42%)
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  SaS 2010 (12.15%)
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  KDH 2010 (8.53%)
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  Most-Híd 2010 (8.13%)
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  SNS 2010 (5.08%)
• 
  SMER-SD 2012 (44.42%)
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  KDH 2012 (8.82%)
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  SaS 2012 (8.56%)
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  Most-Híd 2012 (6.90%)
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  SDKÚ-DS 2012 (6.10%)
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  OĽaNO 2012 (5.88%)
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  SNS 2012 (4.56%)
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  SMER-SD 2016 (28.28%)
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  SaS 2016 (12.10%)
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  OĽaNO-NOVA 2016 (11.03%)
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  SNS 2016 (8.64%)
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  ĽSNS 2016 (8.04%)
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  Sme Rodina 2016 (6.63%)
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  Most-Híd 2016 (6.50%)
• 
  #SIEŤ 2016 (5.61%)
• 
  KDH 2016 (4.94%)

Other choropleth maps of elections in Slovakia found:

• 
  1935 Slovak provincial elections (by sk:User:Maros441)
• 
  DS 1946 (62% in Slovakia, 14% statewide)
• 
  KSČ 1946 (31% statewide)
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  HZDS 1992 (37.26%)
• 
  HZDS-RSS 1994 (34.97%)
• 
  2015 referendum (94.50% for man-woman marriage) (by sk:User:Belisarius~skwiki)
• 
  KDH 2019 (9.70%)

South Africa

commons:User:沁水湾 attempted to mix two types of maps, one large with bullet points for seats, the others are small party-specific choropleth maps with number. I am not sure the first one is necessary at all, and removing it would increase the size of choropleth maps, making the numbers legible.

• 
  1994 General Election
• 
  1999 General Election
• 
  2004 General Election
• 
  2009 General Election
• 
  2014 General Election
• 
  2019 General Election

Spain

Made by es:User:Adaklein, who did just a few dozen contributions to Wikipedia, and this is his only map posted on Mediawiki. Uses 6 hues. Quite legible (except the legend's police font).

CUP 2015 (8.2%)

Turkey

Turkish User:Nub Cake made these choropleth maps of the performance of Turkish political parties over the recent years. There are 7 hues, but the margins are not provided:

• 
  AKP 2002
• 
  AKP 2007
• 
  AKP 2011
• 
  AKP 2015 (June)
• 
  AKP 2015 (November)
• 
  CHP 1977
• 
  CHP 1995
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  CHP 1999
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  CHP 2002
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  CHP 2007
• 
  CHP 2011
• 
  CHP 2015 (June)
• 
  CHP 2015 (November)

With the help of User:Nub Cake, User:Mondolkiri, who is now banned from editing, made these maps using 10% intervals:

• 
  İhsanoğlu 2014
• 
  Erdoğan 2014
• 
  Demirtaş 2014

Previously, User:Emreculha made other maps for Turkish parties' performance, using a wide palette of hues, representing 5% intervals (which leads to similar legibility issues as for Swedish/Norwegian maps).

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  MHP 1969
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  MHP 1973
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  MHP 1977
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  MHP 1995
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  MHP 1999
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  MHP 2002
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  MHP 2007
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  MHP 2011
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  MHP 2015

User:QuartierLatin1968 made these maps in 2007 using a color gradient instead of discrete hues. The result is more legible than 10 or 20 hues. The user is still contributing to Wikipedia projects.

• 
  Independents 2007
• 
  AKP 2007
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  CHP 2007
• 
  DP 2007
• 
  MHP 2007

User:MustafaKurt and User:Bibilili

• 
  DP 2007
• 
  GP 2007

Ukraine

Made by commons:User:Tohaomg (also uk:Користувач:Tohaomg) following the 2019 snap elections. The number of intervals varies between 5 and 9. The ranges are ad hoc. On the one hand, it quickly conveys where parties are strong and weak. On the other hand, the hues are not, however, standardized -- leaving the impression that the 3rd party came in front of the 1st.

• 
  Servant of the People (SN) 2019 (43.16%)
• 
  Opposition Platform — For Life 2019 (13.05%)
• 
  Fatherland 2019 (8.18%)
• 
  European Solidarity 2019 (8.10%)
• 
  Voice 2019 (5.82%)
• 
  Turnout 2019

The first modern Ukrainian election per se:

• 
  1991 Ukrainian independence referendum

Maps for the period between 1994 and 2002 (besides turnout) were made by commons:User:Nazar.galitskyj in 2013-14 and 2019. Uses few hues, but very informative:

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  Turnout 2002 (Rada)
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  Turnout 2006 (Rada)
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  Turnout 2007 (Rada)
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  Turnout 2012 (Rada)
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  Turnout 2014 (Rada)
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  Turnout 2019 (Presidential, 2nd round)
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  Kravchuk 1994, 1st round (38.4%)
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  Kravchuk 1994, 2nd round (45.2%)
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  Kuchma 1994, 1st round (31.8%)
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  Kuchma 1994, 1st round (52.4%)
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  KPU 1998 (24.65%)
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  Rukh 1998 (9.40%)
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  SPU-SLPU 1998 (8.56%)
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  Greens 1998 (5.44%)
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  NDP 1998 (5.01%)
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  Hromada 1998 (4.68%)
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  PSPU 1998 (4.05%)
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  SDPU(u) 1998 (4.01%)
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  Kuchma 1999, 1st round (36.49%)
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  Kuchma 1999, 2nd round (56.25%)
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  Symonenko 1999, 1st round (22.24%)
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  Symonenko 1999, 2nd round (37.8%)
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  Nasha Ukrayina 2002 (23.57%)
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  KPU 2002 (19.99%)
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  Kuchma's alliance 2002 (11.78%)
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  Tymoshenko's Bloc 2002 (7.26%)
• 
  SPU 2002 (6.87%)

commons:User:DemocracyATwork contributed solely to Wikipedia between 2008 and 2010 to upload content about Ukrainian elections:

• 
  Yushchenko 2004, 1st round (39.90%)
• 
  Yanukovych 2004, 1st round (39.26%)
• 
  Moroz 2004, 1st round (5.82%)
• 
  Yanukovych 2004, 2nd round
• 
  Yanukovych 2004, 2nd round re-run
• 
  Yushchenko 2004, 2nd round
• 
  Yushchenko 2004, 2nd round re-run
• 
  Yanukovych 2010, 1st round (35.32%)
• 
  Tymoshenko 2010, 1st round (25.05%)
• 
  Serhiy Tihipko 2010, 1st round (13.05%)
• 
  Yatseniuk 2010, 1st round (6.96%)
• 
  Yanukovych 2010, 2nd round (45.47%)
• 
  Yanukovych 2010, 2nd round (48.95%)

Well-done maps at the district level were made back in 2006 by User:Olegzima:

• 
  PR 2006 (32.14%)
• 
  Tymoshenko's Bloc (Fatherland+USDP) 2006 (22.30%)
• 
  Our Ukraine Bloc (NU+Rukh+KUN+others) 2006 (13.96%)
• 
  SPU 2006 (5.70%)
• 
  KPU 2006 (3.67%)
• 
  Vitrenko's Bloc (PSPU+Rus) (2.93%)

commons:User:DemocracyATwork made the same maps twice -- one highlighting regional strongholds (using the shares of the parties' nationwide votes), the other showing regional success (relative to other parties in the region):

2007 Rada elections
Maps showing the top six parties support - percentage of total national vote (minimal text)

Party of Regions results (34.37%)	Bloc Yulia Tymoshenko results (30.71%	Our Ukraine People's Self-Defence results (14.15%)
Communist Party of Ukraine results (5.39%)	Bloc Lytvyn Party results (3.96%)	Socialist Party of Ukraine results (2.86%)

2007 Rada elections
Maps showing the top six parties support - percentage per region

Party of Regions results (34.37%)	Bloc Yulia Tymoshenko results (30.71%	Our Ukraine People's Self-Defence results (14.15%)
Communist Party of Ukraine results (5.39%)	Bloc Lytvyn Party results (3.96%)	Socialist Party of Ukraine results (2.86%)

User:Green Zero (commons:User:Green Zero) made these maps for the 2014 Ukrainian presidential election:

↑ Порошенко Petro Poroshenko (54.70%)		↑ Тимошенко Yulia Tymoshenko (12.81%)		↑ Ляшко Oleh Liashko (8.32%)
↑ Гриценко Anatoliy Hrytsenko (5.48%)		↑ Тігіпко Serhiy Tihipko (5.23%)		↑ Добкін Mykhailo Dobkin (3.03%)
↑ Рабінович Vadim Rabinovich (2.25%)		↑ Богомолець Olga Bogomolets (1.91%)		↑ Симоненко Petro Symonenko (1.51%)
↑ Тягнибок Oleh Tyahnybok (1.16%)		↑ Ярош (0.70%)		↑ Гриненко (0.40%)
↑ Коновалюк (0.38%)		↑ Бойко (0.19%)		↑ Маломуж (0.13%)
↑ Кузьмін (0.10%)		↑ Куйбіда (0.06%)		↑ Клименко (0.05%)
↑ Цушко (0.05%)		↑ Саранов (0.03%)		↑ Шкіряк (0.02%)

United Kingdom

Scotland

commons:User:Brythones and commons:User:MrPenguin20 made these maps in 2016-2017, using 5% or 2.5% intervals:

• 
  2016 Conservatives (22.9%)
• 
  2016 Conservatives swing (+10.6%)
• 
  EU membership referendum Remain vote (62.00%)

commons:User:沁水湾 just made these pretty maps, using 5% intervals, which in this case works very fine:

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  2014 Scottish independence referendum "No" vote (55.30%)
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  Glasgow SNP 2017 (41.0%, 39)
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  Glasgow Labour 2017 (30.2%, 31)
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  Glasgow Conservative 2017 (14.6%, 8)
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  Glasgow Green 2017 (8.7%, 7)
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  West Lothian SNP 2017 (37.3%, 13)
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  West Lothian SNP 2022 (37.9%, 15)
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  West Lothian Labour 2017 (29.0%, 12)
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  West Lothian Labour 2022 (28.6%, 12)
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  West Lothian Conservative 2017 (23.2%, 7)
• 
  West Lothian Conservative 2022 (15.9%, 4)

United States

Although you would think that the USA, not using Proportional Representation in any circumstance, do not need choropleth maps, commons:User:沁水湾 has found a very good use, with multi-candidate primaries. She uses 5% intervals, which makes extremes very legible:

• 

Similarly, User:MisterElection2001 made choropleth maps for minor presidential candidates, by county:

• 
  1972 presidential election - Percentage of votes cast for John Schmitz by county
• 
  2016 presidential election - Percentage of votes cast for Gary Johnson by county
• 
  2016 presidential election - Percentage of votes cast for Jill Stein by county

Cities

• 
  2017 Graz local election
• 
  2021 Graz local election

Other interesting uses and types

Choropleth maps unrelated to elections

• 
  Poland's most denser gminy (by commons:User:Klarigi a.k.a. NerdyMaps)
• 
  Austria
• 
  Ukraine
• 
  Italy
• 
  Hungary
• 
  Switzerland
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  Germany
• 
  Belgium
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  The Netherlands
• 
  Central Europe

Multi-colored areas

Mostly used on Wikipedia for the United Kingdom local elections (as each ward has multiple seats)

• 
  Northern Ireland 1999
• 
  West Lothian 2007
• 
  Glasgow City 2007

Cartograms (anamorphosis)

• 
  2002 Cartogram with each municipality rescaled to the number of valid votes cast. The municipalities are the color of the party that got the most votes within the coalition that won relative majority.
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  2002 Cartogram of vote with each municipality rescaled in proportion to number of valid votes cast. Deeper blue represents a relative majority for the centre-right coalition, brighter red represents a relative majority for the left-wing coalition.
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  2006 Cartogram of the vote with each municipality rescaled in proportion to the number of valid votes. Deeper blue represents a relative majority for Alliance for Sweden, brighter red represents a relative majority for the Red-Green bloc.
• 
  Map showing the voting shifts from the 2002 to the 2006 election. Darker blue indicates a municipality voted more towards the parties that form Alliance for Sweden. Darker red indicates a municipality voted more towards the parties that form the red-green bloc.
• 
  2002 Votes by municipality as a scale from red/Left-wing bloc to blue/Centre-right bloc.

A very original map combining a cartogram of Czech districts sized by their proportion of catholics, colored in 5 hues depending of their vote for the KDU-ČSL party in 2010.

Various

commons:User:Magog the Ogre/Political maps

See also

also see

• Category:Choropleth maps on Commons
• WikiMedia Commons search for "choropleth"