Some notes on the spatial representations

Souknilanh Keola and Kenmei Tsubota

No 589, IDE Discussion Papers from Institute of Developing Economies, Japan External Trade Organization(JETRO)

Abstract: There are conventional methods to calculate the centroid of spatial units and distance among them with using Geographical Information Systems (GIS). The paper points out potential measurement errors of this calculation. By taking Indian district data as an example, systematic errors concealed in such variables are shown. Two comparisons are examined; firstly, we compare the centroid obtained from the spatial units, polygons, and the centre of each city where its district headquarters locates. Secondly, between the centres represented in the above, we calculate the direct distances and road distances obtained from each pair of two districts. From the comparison between the direct distances of centroid of spatial units and the road distances of centre of district headquarters, we show the distribution of errors and list some caveats for the use of conventional variables obtained from GIS.

Keywords: Geography; Maps; Information technology; Centrality; Road distance; Direct distance (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C21 D82 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016-03-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-geo and nep-ure
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Published in IDE Discussion Paper = IDE Discussion Paper, No. 589. 2016-03-01

Downloads: (external link)
https://ir.ide.go.jp/?action=repository_action_com ... bute_id=22&file_no=1 First version, 2016 (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:jet:dpaper:dpaper589

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
Publication Office, IDE 3-2-2 Wakaba, Mihama-ku, Chiba-shi, Chiba 261-8545 JAPAN
http://www.ide.go.jp/English/Publish/Order

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IDE Discussion Papers from Institute of Developing Economies, Japan External Trade Organization(JETRO) Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Michitaka Imamitsu ().