Scottish Parliament Regions, Constituencies & Members – Political Knowledge Atlas (10 Apr 2020)

Scottish Parliament Regions, Constituencies & Members – Political Knowledge Atlas (10 Apr 2020)

The Scottish Parliament elects it’s 129 members by a mixed member proportional representation (MMP) – 73 to single member consisuencies by ‘first past the post’ & 7 to each of the 8 Electoral Regions system – every 5 years (the last election was in May 2016). Though these politicians fundamentally affect our lives on a day-to-day basis – be they ministers in the government of the day responsible for policy & the delivery of services, or supporting it from the ‘back benches’, or part of the opposition holding it to account, or ‘just a local MSP’ working on behalf of their constituents – it’s difficult to get the big picture AND the detail, AND how both have changed over time, in the one source. This first ever political knowledge atlas of the elected members, constituencies of the Scottish Parliament in Scotland helps solve that problem in a single, information rich, intuitive to navigate, easy to share, digital document.

Structured by Electoral Region and coloured by poitical party when appropriate, there are knowledge seed branches for every electoral region and constituency within them. Embedded within each is a contextual thumbnail location map and spreadsheet table of ‘All Election Results’  at region or constsuency level since the parliament was established in 1999, whilst there are attached multiple links to general, geographic & electoral knowledge resources about them.

There are also knowledge seed branches for all the current Scottish MSP’s (with those that have retired or died since they were last elected retained as sub-branches for reference), each with embedded official portrait picture and their previous electoral victories as data fields. Collections of sub-branches of links to ‘Official Parliamentary’, ‘Official Party & MSP Controlled’ and ‘Externally Controlled’ knowledge resources about each MSP – with multiple selected links also attached to the seed branches – complete this first ever national local knowledge map of all the Scottish Parliament’s regions, constituencies & MSPs. It also provides a comprehensive & robust visual knowledge framework upon which to build other maps in the future and, with the next Scottish General Election scheduled for May 2021, that future is not that far away…

Show more...

Our Scottish Parliament Regions, Constituencies & Members – Political Knowledge Atlas is the ideal starting point for ‘thumb & brain friendly’ desktop (or even ‘in the field’) research for anyone with an interest in the political make up of any, or all, of the Scotish Parliament’s 8 Electoral Regions and 73  Constituencies, and the 129 members (MSPs) elected to them. It is made up of visual framework of…

2 x 8 Scottish Parliament Electoral Regions political knowledge seed branches – with unique identifying codes, embedded thumbnail location map image and a spreadsheet table coloured by party showing the results – one set showing combined regional & component constituency results, the other just regional results – of all the elections so far, as well as attached multiple hyperlinks to core general, geographic & electoral knowledge resources, and index markers that also tag them with some of the contextual knowledge.

73 Scottish Parliament Constituencies political knowledge seed branches – with unique identifying codes, embedded thumbnail location map image and a spreadsheet table coloured by party showing the results (votes cast, winning majorities and turnout) of the most recent elections in the constituency, as well as attached multiple hyperlinks to core general, geographic & electoral knowledge resources, and index markers that also tag them with some of the contextual knowledge.

128 Scottish Parlaiment Elected Members (MSPs) – 56 Regional (‘List’) and 59 Constituency – political knowledge seed branches – coloured by political party with their embedded official profile image, their ‘electoral victory history’ as data fields, and notable changes in circumstance since they were last elected recorded as a branch note, as well as attached multiple hyperlinks to ‘Official Parliamentary’ (eg. official profile page(s) & entry in the register of members interests), ‘Official Party & MP Controlled’ and ‘Externally Controlled’ knowledge resources, and index markers that also tag them with some of that contextual knowledge.

Each of these MSP seed branches also has collections of sub-branches, each with a single hyperlink to official / definitive / plain old useful ‘Official Parliamentary’, ‘Official Party & MSP Controlled’ and ‘Externally Controlled’ knowledge resources about them found in the public domian.

Official Parliamentary Knowledge Resource Link Collection – This includes their official profile page(s) on the Scottish Parliament website, their contact details, official email address and register of members interests.

Official Party & MSP Controlled Knowledge Resource Link Collection – This includes the MSP’s official profile on their Party’s website, their own official website and their social media accounts like Facebook and Twitter.

Externally Controlled Knowledge Resource Link Collection – This includes the MSP’s entry on pro democratic process transparency websites run by social enterprises and volunteers such as The Public Whip (voting record), TheyWorkForYou (more detailed analysis of their voting), Who Can I Vote For? by Democracy Club (crowd-sourced details of the MSP as an election candidate), and, if there is one, their Wikipedia article.

Together these elements establish a comprehensive & robust visual knowledge framework upon which we can build many other maps about the ‘national local’ building blocks of Scotland based on the political makeup of Scottish Parliamentary Electoral Regions and Constituencies and their elected members (MSP’s) in the future.

MindManager Users – As with all our maps, the MindManager (.mmap) version of this map is also both a base map to add your own content to, or a source of content that can be added to your own existing maps.

Explore the other tabs for comprehensive descriptions of the knowledge seed branches and knowledge link collections that make up this knowledge atlas map….

Part of the 'Governance & Politics' Category

Read more about it on our blog

Map Facts

Here are some of the ‘fun facts’ 😉 about the  Scottish Parliament’s 8 Electoral Regions,  73 Constituencies & 129 (56 regional & 73 Constituency) Elected Members (MSPs) that we have discovered (and embedded!) during the process of creating this map…

Geographic Area (Regn)

Smallest & Largest

sq km
0

Glasgow Region

sq km
0

Highlands and Islands Region

Area Per MSP (Regn)

Smallest & Largest

sq km per Regional MSP
0

Glasgow Region

sq km per Regional MSP
0

Highlands and Islands Region

Geographic Area (Cons)

Smallest & Largest

sq km
0

Glasgow Kelvin Consituency

sq km
0

Caithness, Sutherland and Ross Constituency

Political Balance

ALL, Regional and Constituency MSPs

ALL MSP's

(129 MSP's)

MPs - SNP: 61 LDP: 5 Lab: 24 Grn: 6 Con: 13 Oth (Ind): 2

Constituency MSP's

(73 MSP's)

MPs - SNP: 57 LDP: 4 Lab: 3 Grn: 0 Con: 7 Oth (Ind): 2

Majority

Smallest & Largest

votes
0

Edinburgh Central Consituency [Con]

votes
0

Aberdeen Donside Constituency [Ind (ex SNP)]

Regional ('List') MSP's

(56 MSP's)

MPs - SNP: 4 LDP: 1 Lab: 21 Grn: 6 Con: 24 Oth (Ind): 0

Gender Balance

ALL, Regional and Constituency MSPs

ALL MSP's

(129 MSP's)

MPs - ALL: 129 Female: 47 Male: 82

Constituency MSP's

(73 MSP's)

MPs - ALL: 73 Female: 28 Male: 45

Regional ('List') MSP's

(56 MSP's)

MPs - ALL: 56 Female: 19 Male: 37

Map Features

We take full advantage of MindManager’s many unique ‘information cartography’ features when creating our unique maps so we can pack in 1000’s of ‘bits’ of knowledge into a single, visually structured, intuitive to navigate document that can be easily shared. Here are the main features of this UK Parliament Scottish Constituencies & Members Polticial Knowledge Atlas (5 Nov 2019)​

Show more...

Big Map With 100's Of Branches & Links And Capacity For Plenty More

With 2,950 knowledge resource links over 1,763 branches, this map is a useful, contextual knowledge resource in it’s own right, as well as being a visually structured ndex of the best definitive / official / plain old useful knowledge resources available in the public domain about the subject. Thanks to MindManager’s unique capabilities it has plenty of spare capacity for further content to be added in the future.

Show more...

Main Branches Create Robust Visual Framework For 'Seed Branches'

The 1st & 2nd level branches form the main (‘org-tree’) visual framework within which the map content of interest sits. As everything nests into electoral regions, the 1st level are summary branches for each arranged alphabetically from left to right, with an additional ‘all regions as a whole’ summary branch. The 2nd level sub-branches are summary branches for the regional level results and members, and for the constituencies. There are approximately the same number of MSPs and constituencies in each region so each main branch is of a similar depth.

Show more...

Visually Rich 'General Knowledge Seed' Branch For Each Of The 73 Scottish Parliament Constituencies

The 2nd level branches are political ‘knowledge seed points’ for individual United Kingdom Parliament constituencies. They contain the name & official constituency identifier codes in variably formatted (‘rich’) text, and a thumbnail location map image to aid user navigation and provide spatial context. This is supplemented by the variation in topic shape, which indicates the status of the borders with neighbouring electoral wards – all coastlal (ie. island), mixed or all land (ie. landlocked). There is also a table of the results by party for the most recent (half dozen or so) General Elections & by-elections, coloured by party, as well as multiple hyperlinks to public domain general, geographic & electoral knowledge resources about the constituency. The full list of knowledge embedded within, and attached to, this seed topic is given in the map summary above.

Show more...

Embedded Spreadsheet Contains All Election Results For The Region and Constituency So Far

Data features embedded within seed branches – like spreadsheets, charts & data fields (another unique MindManager feature) – provide another ‘channel’ of knowlegde that adds context to the more detailed knowledge contained in the public domain resources linked to in the map. The embedded spreadsheets are a table of the results by party for all the Scottish General Elections & by-elections in the constituency, coloured by party, showing the results for each party candidate, the turnout, and the majority of the winning candidate are also recorded (Regional results show votes and number of MSPs elected). The colouring by party gives a simple ‘at a glance’ recent electoral history of the constituency, whilst the attached multiple hyperlinks to electoral knowledge resources will provide more detail as required. The full list of data embedded within this seed topic is given in the map summary above.

Show more...

Visually Rich 'General Knowledge Seed' Branch For Each Of The 129 Members of the Scottish Parliament (MSPs)

The 3rd level branches are ‘knowledge seed points’ for individual members of the Scottish Parliament (MSPs), coloured by their political party allegiance. They contain the members name suffixed by ‘MSP’ and their party allegiance in brackets, as well as a thumbnail of their official portrait picture. Their constituency names are also included to make it easier to keep track of ‘who’s who and where’s where’ when many MSP branches are open on screen at one time. Embedded data fields show the MP’s majorities when elected for the constituency. There are also multiple hyperlinks to public domain knowledge resources about the MSP, including their official register of interests. The full list of knowledge embedded within, and attached to, this seed topic is given in the map summary above.

Show more...

Embedded Data Fields Show MSP's Previous Electoral Victories

Data features embedded within seed branches – like spreadsheets, charts & data fields (another unique MindManager feature) – provide another ‘channel’ of knowlegde that adds context to the more detailed knowledge contained in the public domain resources linked to in the map. The data fields embedded in the MSP seed topic show their previous electoral victories in the mixed member proportional representation (MMP) system – in a ‘first past the post’ constituency or ‘on the list’ in one of the additional member regions. The full list of data embedded within this seed topic is given in the map summary above.

Show more...

Attached Multiple Hyperlinks To Public Domain Knowledge Resources

Seed Branches have multiple hyperlinks attached to them (yet another unique feature of MindManager maps), which link to the best definitive / official / plain old useful knowledge resources available in the public domain about the subject. The ‘definable link text’ gives clarty as to the resource being linked to (which can be very variable if left to the default). As well as increasing the amount of knowledge that can be ‘squeezed’ into a map without increasing the ‘visual clutter’ of additional branches, it means these links can be retained if the seed branches are used in other maps, or this map is re-purposed. The full list of multiple knowledge resource hyperlinks attached to the seed topics in this map is given in the map summary above.

Show more...

Index Marker Tag Groups Enable 'Geo Intelligent' & Other Map Filtering

Branches in the map may be tagged with one or more ‘index markers’ from one or more ‘marker groups’. These enable intelligent map filtering and quick navigation. Many of the tags are ‘geographic’ in nature such that branches are tagged with ‘where’ they are – eg. administrative or electoral areas. This gives the map in-built ‘spatial intelligence’ and the ability to be ‘geo-filtered’. (MindManager software users can copy and paste any of the marker groups in any other maps). The full list of index marker tags attached to the seed topics in this map is given in the map summary above.

Show more...

Sub-Branch Collections Of Single Links To Public Domain Knowledge Resources

The Scottish Parliament Members (MSPs) sub-branch link collections – each with a single hyperlink to official / definitive / at least practical & useful online knowledge resources – are grouped into related collections for ‘Official Parliamentary’, ‘Official Party/MSP Controlled’ and  ‘Externally Controlled’ knowledge resources. These are starting points for knowledge discovery and subsequent more detailed (‘desktop’) research. (MindManager software users have the advantage of being able to add to these branches as they go). The full list of links in the sub-branch collections attached to this seed branch is given in the map summary above.

Show more...

Map Legend Branch Describes Each Topic 'Type' With Links To Further Information

Every map needs to have a legend that explains the cartographic structure, colours and symbology used. The ‘Map Legend’ branch describes the sub-components of each ‘type’ of map branch, with links to further knowledge resources where necessary.

Show more...

'Contributing Online Knowledge-bases Branch' With Links To Further Information