Create world map charts with svgMap

Published May 2019

svgMap is a lightweight JavaScript library that lets you easily create interactive world maps, allowing you to display customizable data for each country in a visually engaging way.

Install

ES6

You can install svgMap via npm:

npm install --save svgmap
import svgMap from 'svgmap';
import 'svgmap/dist/svgMap.min.css';

CDN

jsDelivr is a great CDN choice for svgMap:

<script src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/svg-pan-zoom@3.6.1/dist/svg-pan-zoom.min.js"></script>
<script src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/gh/StephanWagner/svgMap@v2.12.2/dist/svgMap.min.js"></script>
<link href="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/gh/StephanWagner/svgMap@v2.12.2/dist/svgMap.min.css" rel="stylesheet">

Usage

Create an HTML element where to show your map, then use JavaScript to initialize:

<div id="svgMap"></div>
new svgMap({
  targetElementID: 'svgMap',
  data: {
    data: {
      gdp: {
        name: 'GDP per capita',
        format: '{0} USD',
        thousandSeparator: ',',
        thresholdMax: 50000,
        thresholdMin: 1000
      },
      change: {
        name: 'Change to year before',
        format: '{0} %'
      }
    },
    applyData: 'gdp',
    values: {
      AF: {gdp: 587, change: 4.73},
      AL: {gdp: 4583, change: 11.09},
      DZ: {gdp: 4293, change: 10.01}
      // ...
    }
  }
});

Demo

The example code above creates a world map displaying the GDP per capita and its change from the previous year:

Options

You can pass the following options into svgMap:

targetElementID string The ID of the element where the world map will render.
Required
minZoom
maxZoom
float Minimal and maximal zoom level.
Default: 1 for minZoom, 25 for maxZoom
initialZoom float Initial zoom level.
Default: 1.06
initialPan object Initial pan on x and y axis, e.g. { x: 120, y: 60 }.
Default: { x: 0, y: 0 }
zoomScaleSensitivity float Sensitivity when zooming.
Default: 0.2
mouseWheelZoomEnabled boolean Enables or disables zooming with the scroll wheel.
Default: true
mouseWheelZoomWithKey boolean Allow zooming only when one of the following keys is pressed: SHIFT, CONTROL, ALT, COMMAND, OPTION.
Default: false
mouseWheelKeyMessage string The message when trying to scroll without a key.
Default: 'Press the [ALT] key to zoom'
mouseWheelKeyMessageMac string The message when trying to scroll without a key on MacOS.
Default: 'Press the [COMMAND] key to zoom'
colorMax
colorMin
colorNoData
string Color for highest value colorMax, lowest value colorMin and no data available colorNoData.
Default: '#CC0033', '#FFE5D9', '#E2E2E2'
flagType 'emoji', 'image' The type of the flag in the tooltip.
Default: 'image'
flagURL string The URL to the flags when using flag type 'image'. The placeholder {0} will get replaced with the lowercase ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 country code.
Default: 'https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/gh/hjnilsson/country-flags@latest/svg/{0}.svg'
hideFlag boolean Hide the flag in tooltips.
Default: false
noDataText string The text to be shown when no data is present.
Default: 'No data available'
touchLink boolean Set to true to open the link (see data.values.link) on mobile devices, by default the tooltip will be shown.
onGetTooltip function Called when a tooltip is created to custimize the tooltip content (function (tooltipDiv, countryID, countryValues) { return 'Custom HTML'; }).
countries: {} Additional options specific to countries:
↳ EH boolean When set to false, Western Sahara (EH) will be combined with Morocco (MA).
Default: true
data: {} The chart data to use for coloring and to show in the tooltip. Use a unique data-id as key and provide following options as value:
↳ name string The name of the data, it will be shown in the tooltip.
↳ format string The format for the data value, {0} will be replaced with the actual value.
↳ thousandSeparator string The character to use as thousand separator.
Default: ','
↳ thresholdMax number Maximal value to use for coloring calculations.
↳ thresholdMin number Minimum value to use for coloring calculations.
↳ applyData string The ID (key) of the data that will be used for coloring.
↳ values object An object with the ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 country code as key and the chart data for each country as value.
  ↳ color string Forces a color for this country.
  ↳ link string An URL to redirect to when clicking the country.
  ↳ linkTarget string The target of the link. By default the link will be opened in the same tab. Use '_blank' to open the link in a new tab.
countryNames object An object with the ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 country code as key and the country name as value.

Localize

Use the option countryNames to translate country names.
In the folder demo/html/local you can find translations in following languages:

Arabic, Chinese, English, French, German, Hindi, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Urdu

To create your own translations, check out country-list by Saša Stamenković.

Attribution

If you need more detailed maps or more options for your data, there is a great open source project called datawrapper out there, with a lot more power than svgMap. Highmaps is also a great alternative.

svgMap uses svg-pan-zoom by Anders Riutta.

The country flag images are from country-flags by Hampus Nilsson.

Share Your Thoughts

I’d love to hear your thoughts, questions, or feedback!
pankhuri 1 month ago
Hi Stephan,
I can see you are in india now from your map. Hopefully you are enjoying it.
Stephan i your svgMap code i need help.
I am dynamically pulling values from sharepoint for different countries and maintaining it in JSON with proper country code. How to initialize svgMap values fiels to this JSON so created.
Please help me here.
Thank you