GeoDa — The Complete Guide: Free Spatial Statistics and Hot-Spot Analysis
GeoDa is open-source software from the Center for Spatial Data Science at the University of Chicago. It answers a question an ordinary map cannot: is the concentration you see on the map real, or just chance? It reads Shapefile, GeoJSON, GeoPackage and CSV, and runs on Windows, macOS and Linux.
GeoDa
Center for Spatial Data Science, University of Chicago
Spatial data analysis: spatial autocorrelation, clustering and spatial regression on maps, to find patterns in accident, demand or pollution data.
Get it from the vendorWhat you get
- Spatial weights — defining neighbours by shared border, distance or number of nearest neighbours.
- Spatial autocorrelation — Moran’s I and LISA maps that flag clusters and outliers.
- Linked maps and charts — selecting points in a chart highlights the areas on the map and vice versa.
- Spatial clustering — grouping areas into similar, contiguous regions.
- Spatial regression — models that account for the influence of neighbouring areas.
How engineers use it
A transport engineer loads accidents by road segment and checks whether there is a statistically significant hot spot. An urban planner checks whether travel demand concentrates in certain districts, and an environmental engineer examines pollution concentrations. GeoDa does not replace a GIS program for editing and cartography — it is an analysis tool.
Related tools
For preparing layers and final maps — QGIS. For more advanced analysis in code — R. For building a street network from OpenStreetMap data — OSMnx.
QGIS
QGIS.org
Open-source GIS for spatial analysis, layer work and map production.
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R
R Foundation
The leading language for statistics and data analysis — quality control, experiment analysis, reliability and forecasting.
Get it from the vendor
OSMnx
Geoff Boeing
Download and analyse street networks from OpenStreetMap in Python — routing, connectivity, accessibility and network metrics.
Get it from the vendor
PostGIS
PostGIS Project Steering Committee (OSGeo)
An extension to the PostgreSQL database that adds storage, indexing and analysis of geospatial data through SQL queries.
Get it from the vendorThe bottom line
GeoDa is the easiest way to start with spatial statistics without writing code. Open source and completely free, including for commercial use.