Jacques Lévy, a Professor at the University of Reims, has been pleading since 2004 for the tool of cartography to be made available to everyone, using the Internet. ‘. . . It would be very useful if a robust tool, like that of the United States Census Bureau, could be put at the disposal of Europeans in general and the French in particular. This public organisation gives access through its Internet website to a vast amount of data which can be transformed into maps; each user can make his own choice of scope, scale, theme and presentation. The civic implications of these innovations are significant.’⁽¹⁾

A Short User Guide

The website is at http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu. The DATA tab gives access to the complete database.⁽²⁾ For example, let us choose the subject ‘Economy and Finance’. Click on ‘Principal Economic Indicators/Long Term Indicators/National Accounts/GDP par capita in PPS.’ That is to say, GDP per capita in purchasing power standards, EU-27=100. A definition of GDP starts under this title and is followed by a link. One can then discover the explanation concerning standards of purchasing power and the base of 100.

We then gain access to three new tabs: table, graphic and map. As a map is generally derived from numeric data, we now need to select and analyse this.