Cutting the Gordian knot of visualizing dense spatial networks: the case of the world city network, 2013

Networks have become ubiquitous in the analysis of socioeconomic patterns. Importantly, most of these networks have an inherent geographical dimension, and are therefore a relevant object for geographical research and related thinking on cartographic mapping and visualization. The visualization of spatial networks is, however, still in its infancy. In this paper, we present and discuss some of the typical issues associated with the visualization of spatial networks, as well as the emerging possibilities to tackle these issues. In particular, we focus on a state-of-the-art graph layout algorithm that uses edge bundling on network layers in conventional maps. We use the example of the geographies of the world city network in 2013 as researched by the Globalization and World Cities network (GaWC).