Conclusion

We covered a lot today! Some of the concepts we learned today are:

how to add vector layers from shapefiles
how to add raster layers from shapefiles
how to add a basemap
how to add a new layer and draw features
how to create new layers using clipping, buffers, and other geoprocessing tools
how to generate attributes
how to use the field calculator
how to change symbology
how to create a map using layout

More Possibilities and Resources

I hope you have enjoyed this brief QGIS exercise and that this has helped you understand a bit better how GIS works and some of the things you can do with these applications. But don’t stop here!

There are also many more possibilities with GIS. Some additional things that you can do that we did not cover include:

Creating a new layer from a subset of one by using “filter”
Converting vector layers to raster layers
Georeferencer: creating new points with map coordinates
Geocoding: assign coordinates to points that you have a street address for
Spatial analysis

There’s much more to learn and there are plenty of resources online to help you learn more about QGIS. The first stop for you would be the GIS Practicum developed by Frank Donnelly of Baruch College. Also, don’t forget to check out the Raster Tutorial which will elaborate on alternatives ways of using Digital Elevation Maps and useful plugins. The GIS Lounge also has plenty of resources to learn GIS for free.

Other resources of interest may be another QGIS tutorial specific to humanities “Mapping Literary Space in QGIS” and Stackexchange has a qgis section.

Remember that you can download many Shapefiles and Raster Images for free online, that you could find by doing Google searches or looking in specific sites, such as the NY State Data site, the US Census Bureau, or these recommendations from GIS Geography.

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