Basics of Python

• A powerful programming language that is free to download and use.
• Well suited for data analysis and visualization.
• A great choice for working with geospatial data.

Accessing Python

• Today We’ll be using a UBC server with Python already installed on it.
• If you want to install Python on your own computer, check out Anaconda * Anaconda will install most commonly used python packages and set everything up for you. * Anaconda won’t install every package we’re using today, but installing new packages is fairly straightforward.

Other Python Resources:

• If you’re having issues with Python, a great place to check out is Stack Overflow
  • Its a popular forum where you can search, post, and answer coding questions.
• A related site that is more GIS focused site is Stack Exchnage

Python Pakcakges:

Packages (aka libraries) are collections of code that are designed specifically for performing different tasks, e.g.: Plotting, Statistics, Linear Algebra, etc. The main packages used in this workshop are:

• Pandas is a powerful library for handling tabular data.
  • We’ll use Pandas to import, query, and manipulate data tables.
• Geopandas is a geospatial extension to pandas.
  • We’ll use Geopandas to handle some of the spatial components of our data set
• Matplotlib is a plotting library.
  • We’ll uses Maptlotlib to make plots and investigate relationships in the dateset.
• Geopy is a library that connect us with different geodocing services.
  • We’ll use Geopy to request the coordinates (Latitude/Longitude) of addresses using Mapboxes geocdong API.
• Folium is a library that “translates” Python commands to JavaScript and creates interactive webmaps
  • We’ll use Folium to display the data on maps that we can interact with (click, pan, zoom). See the example below.

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