My question is about preparing a simple map of a study area. Would you recommend a website or software which has easy to use features?
To be more specific, e.g. a map which would consist of the figure of a blank map showing a country and its neighbouring countries, and an additional close-up figure showing a specific city where some towns or villages can be labelled.
Ps: I already know about ArcGIS and R, but I am looking for something simpler than them, of course, if there is something simpler.
Thanks
I would suggest ARCGIS 10.0 and above. It is arguably the best software tool out there for remote sensing applications. But it is not a free software like QGIS. you can use ERDAS or ENVI as well, but they don't provide an interface like ARCGIS.
For a class paper or press-ready for an academic journal article?
Simplest is Google Earth Pro and a screen capture program with some minimal annotation tools, like GreenShot ( https://getgreenshot.org/ ). Search for your location, zoom to whatever level will encompass your area, use the GEpro annotation polygon tool to draw your area of interest, adjust it's line weight and color. Take a screen shot. Then zoom out to whatever includes your context features like other countries, and take another screen shot. Copy and paste the first one into the second one, move and scale it, outline it,maybe draw some other annotations or text. Save. This one took me about five minutes.
I normally use ArcGIS v10 for study area inset maps. You can also source for the needed administrative boundary data from DIVA-GISwww.diva-gis.org.
My previous answer was a very minimal solution.
A better answer can be given if you could inform us if you have any experience with GIS at all ( ... but one might note that if one is doing any sort of science, some basic knowledge of GIS is almost required these days ). But another starting point could be if you explained what sorts of applications you already familiar with. For instance if you use the R language for analytics, you can produce very nice maps directly, also if you know Python. Some graphic arts programs also now have the means of producing cartography. More recent versions of Microsoft PowerPoint, for instance: https://www.empowersuite.com/en/blog/creating-a-world-map-in-powerpoint-this-is-how-it-works
Or use InkScape ( https://inkscape.org/ , similar to Adobe Illustrator ) and available SVG cartography clip art ( https://mapsvg.com/maps ) can make a very acceptable PostScript file for journal publication, if you aren't interested in all the analytics and complexity of using a GIS application - if you have a certain region your interested and study on a regular basis, I would be happy to spin up an Inkscape file and associated layers from GIS you could use as a template, gratis.
But us knowing where you are starting from will get you the best answer.
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