Get Started

Getting Started With Districts

On the Districtr homepage, click “Draw” in the top right corner. You will be redirected to an interactive map of the United States. Click the state that you wish to redistrict. All 50 states are available, as well as Washington, D.C. and Puerto Rico.

Once you have selected a state, you will be directed to its landing page. The landing page contains mapping options along with background information. Choose a locality (state, region, county, or city) and a districting level by clicking on a card. The available localities and districts vary by state. (Additional localities can usually be added upon request.)

Main Tools

Moving across the map

Select the hand icon on the toolbar at the top of the side panel, on the right of the map. Then click and drag to pan across the map.To zoom in and out, use the plus and minus buttons in the bottom right corner of the map, or use whatever mouse/trackpad controls you are accustomed to in other mapping apps.

Drawing the districts

To start drawing your first district, select the paintbrush icon on the toolbar at the top of the side panel. Click and drag on the map to add units to your district.

To draw another district, select a new color from the color samples. Each color corresponds to a different district. For pages with large numbers of districts, colors will appear one at a time when you start new districts. For these, use the dropdown menu to select a different color.

To change the size of the brush, drag the brush size slider directly above the color bar.

The “Paint by county” option will assign entire counties at a time, and this is on as the default setting to help you get started. To paint units smaller than counties, uncheck the box next to the slider.

To avoid painting over already-drawn areas, check the “Forbid paint-over” box next to the district selector.

To correct the boundaries of your districts, click the erase icon on the toolbar at the top of the side panel. Click and drag to remove units from that district. The size of the eraser can be adjusted by dragging the slider.

Click the “undo/redo” buttons to move your edits backward or forward in time.

Data Tabs

Population

The “Population” tab lists the districts — click a district number to select it and switch the brush to that district's color (or type the number of the district on your keyboard as a shortcut). The tab also shows the population of each district; to balance your population evenly between districts, refer to the ideal population count provided in this panel (shown visually with a vertical bar).

Stats

Under the “Stats” tab, you can check whether your map is complete (i.e., no units are left unassigned).

You can also check whether your districts are contiguous (i.e., each district is a single connected piece).

The “Stats” tab also contains the demographic and election tables. Under demographics, you can access race and ethnicity data from the Census, as well as toggle between total population and voting age population (over 18). Election data lets you see how your districts would have behaved under the voting patterns of recent elections.

Map Layers

The “Map Layer” tab allows you to view additional data visually on the map. Under demographics, choose “Shaded regions” to show a selected demographic variable by shading the units on the map. (Geographers call this a choropleth map.) Alternatively, choose “Sized circles” to show round shapes whose size tells you how many people are in the unit, while shading tells you the percentage in your chosen category.

Viewing elections gives you the same display options of “Shaded regions” and “Sized circles.”

The last section of the “Map Layer” tab lists a number of helpful controls. For instance, you can uncheck “Painted districts” to hide the districts from the map, toggle “County Boundaries” to show or remove county boundaries, and check “Highlight unassigned areas” to see which units are waiting to be painted.

Map Modes

The “Mode” switcher in the top bar lets you move between different ways of working with your map: Draw, Super Draw, View, and Evaluate. Switching from Draw or Super Draw to View or Evaluate will result in the creation of a shareable link. Draw is the most accessible mode for building maps, and it's explained above. (Super Draw is largely for advanced users and we'll expand on its features below.)View mode shows your map without any of the editing tools. This is the mode that others will start in when you share a public link to your map.

Evaluate mode lists some recommended and/or popular scores and metrics for your plan. You can think of this as a report on your plan. Here, you can see whether a plan is complete, contiguous, and population-balanced, as well as getting scores of compactness (district shape), county integrity (splits and pieces), and partisan balance (lean towards one political party or the other).

Saving, Sharing, Importing, & Exporting

Edit map names and details

Your map automatically saves as you work, right in your browser's local storage — no account or login needed. Clicking the map title at the middle of the top bar allows you to edit the map name and put comments on the map. There is also a Map Status field where you can designate your map as Scratch Work, In Progress, or Ready to Share.

The “Catalog” from the main page stores all your maps, which allows you to switch between different maps you have worked on. These maps are stored in your browser's local storage — no account or login needed. They will be removed when you clear your browser data. You can go there at any time from the navigational menu of the “Districtr” icon.

Clicking the “Share” button allows you to create a link to the map. You can share a “frozen” link (simple URL, intended for viewing) or an “editable” link (private ID in the URL, password optional).

Importing Maps

Districtr allows users to import maps from block assignment files in CSV format — this is basically a spreadsheet format where one column contains an identifier for each geographic unit, and the other column says what district that unit is assigned to. This is a standard format available in other mapping software, like Maptitude and DRA. From either the Draw or Catalog/My District Plans, you'll find a link at the upper right to “Upload block assignments.”

Exporting Maps

Districtr provides the option to export a map in several formats. The most compatible format with other platforms is a block assignment file (formatted as a CSV) which assigns census blocks to districts. Click on the “Map Action” menu in the upper right corner of the map and select “Export assignments/Block assignments.” Alternatively, you can export your district shapes as a GeoJSON or a shapefile, or you can export evaluation metrics as a JSON file.

Super Draw

You now know everything you need to draw and share a plan — but if you want to go further, Super Draw mode unlocks additional tools for fine-tuning your districts. You get there from the same “Mode” switcher described above.

Additional tools

If you need to use smaller units of geography to balance the population of your districts, click the break icon on the toolbar. Then click on a unit you want to break down to smaller pieces, which allows you to paint individual blocks within the precinct or block group. You can see the population numbers on the blocks from the pop-up below, or by selecting the “Population labels on exposed blocks” option under the “Map Layers” tab.

Super Draw mode enables the “Inspect” tool. For any precinct, block group, or broken block, you can view its voting age population or total population for a range of ethnic groups, or voter history information for a range of elections. Simply hover your mouse over the unit to see its associated demographic or election data.

Additional controls

Under the “Population” tab, Super Draw allows you to lock districts, which prevents them from being painted over or erased.

Under “Map Layers/Boundaries and areas,” Super Draw allows you to restrict your painting to a county, a metro area, or any other area type available for the map. Similar to the break tool's workflow, you mask an area by clicking the mask button next to the toggle for its area type and selecting that area on the map.

In Super Draw mode, you may switch the layout of the side panel itself between a stacked layout and the default layout consisting of three tabs.

Additional display options

Super Draw mode allows you to change whether the population statistic is displayed by share or by count: under the “Stats” tab, click the gear icon to the right of “Summary Type” and choose “Population by Share” or “Population by Count.” For the demographic table, you may choose a customized coalition (for instance, Black plus Hispanic people) to be displayed as an additional column in the table.

Super Draw mode also allows you to switch on a side-by-side demographic and elections viewing option instead of an overlay. For shaded overlay, you can adjust the opacity of the district layer. Given a specific variable, you now have the option of showing absolute population number, in addition to the default option of population share.

More map display options are available in Super Draw mode under “Map Layers/Map Options,” including the option to choose street map or satellite map as the base layer, the option to show population labels on all units, and the option to highlight broken precincts. You can also customize your color palette for districts.