C
CARTO Blog
carto.com · Company blog · on HN since 2016
CARTO's company blog covers location intelligence, geospatial analysis, maps, PostGIS, and cloud spatial analytics.
What HN saysHN links it for geospatial posts like zip code analysis and vector versus raster maps, and commenters also use it to identify CARTO basemaps.
36HN people shared it
18linked it in comments
20stories submitted
243story points
7 months agolast shared
2016people per year2026
Most-shared posts
- 1Stop using zip codes for geospatial analysis (2019)7 people · 195 points · first shared 2019 · 129 comments on HN
- 2Homepage4 people · first shared 2018
- 3Introducing CARTO Builder: A new way to analyze and visualize location data2 people · 11 points · first shared 2016 · discussion on HN
- 4Geospatial processing with Clickhouse1 people · 12 points · first shared 2017 · 1 comments on HN
- 5PostGIS 3.0 just released with major speed improvements1 people · 5 points · first shared 2019 · discussion on HN
- 6Lessons Learned from Analyzing Over a Million Points of GPS Data1 people · 3 points · first shared 2017 · discussion on HN
- 7Carto raises $61M to lead the way in cloud native spatial analytics1 people · 3 points · first shared 2021 · discussion on HN
- 8CARTO's Use of Postgres Foreign Data Wrappers1 people · 3 points · first shared 2018 · discussion on HN
- 9Getting Started with CartoCSS1 people · 2 points · first shared 2020 · discussion on HN
- 10Pokémon GO Is All About Location Intelligence1 people · 2 points · first shared 2016 · discussion on HN
- 11CARTO tech blog: Mapnik vs. PostGIS1 people · 2 points · first shared 2017 · discussion on HN
- 12Spatial Functions in BigQuery1 people · 1 points · first shared 2019 · discussion on HN
- 13Carto Acquires Geographica1 people · 1 points · first shared 2019 · discussion on HN
- 14On-demand last mile transportation: Real-Time route optimization1 people · 1 points · first shared 2019 · discussion on HN
- 15Predicting Collisions in NYC with New Data Streams and Spatial Analysis1 people · 1 points · first shared 2019 · discussion on HN
What HN people wrote when they linked it
kpennell · 2020-07-01
CARTO | NYC + Madrid + Seville | Customer Success, Backend, Project Manager and More | Full-time | ONSITE | https://www.carto.com
CARTO (formerly CartoDB) is the world’s leading Location Intelligence platform, enabling organizations to use spatial data and analysis for more efficient delivery routes, better behavioral marketing, strategic store placements, and much more. Data Scientists, Developers and Analysts use CARTO to optimize business processes, and predict future outcomes through the power of Spatial Data Science.
Shorter version: We make really great APIs and libraries for doing geospatial data analysis and visualization (docs: https://carto.com/developers/ )
We have really great clients from around the world, good work-life balance and vacation, and kind and knowledgeable people.
Feel free to apply at our /careers page or email me if you're interested and have questions kpennell at carto dot com
Doohickey-d · 2026-04-08
Looks like it's using leaflet + map tiles from https://carto.com/
I think Mapbox also provides a similar looking basemap style.
smokel · 2025-07-04
They probably mean CARTO, formerly known as CartoDB.
https://carto.com/
nickpatrick · 2023-09-27
Old but good post on vector maps vs. raster maps from our friends at CARTO: https://carto.com/blog/raster-vs-vector-whats-the-difference-which-is-…
WaffleIronMaker · 2023-01-11
Hi! Thanks for this insightful article.
I was curious about the data analysis tool you used, and I looked at their pricing page [1], to find that they're charging $200 to $300 per month for individual use. Is that correct? or are there other options I'm missing?
[1] https://carto.com/pricing/
nknealk · 2020-02-06
For those interested, carto also has some lovely OSM tiles
https://carto.com/blog/positron-dark-matter-new-look/
mtmail · 2019-12-06
The OpenStreetMap basemap requires attribution. The example map on https://carto.com/location-data-services/basemaps/ shows "Leaflet | © OpenStreetMap contributors, © CARTO"
Great to see you're upfront about affiliate links and commissions.
reustle · 2018-07-25
While everyone here is thinking Amtrak implemented the copy protection, this map was actually built using CartoDB. I honestly just think it's something it includes by default.
https://carto.com/
matallo · 2018-04-28
> Next up was the laborious process of determining which bus lines one could actually take to each tennis court. My approach was 100% analog, starting from the top of the alphabetical list of tennis courts (Alamo Square) and marching straight through to the end (Youngblood Coleman), noting all of the bus lines that had a stop within reasonable walking distance to a court.
As a cartography nerd myself I was surprised just one comment suggested using GIS and geospatial analysis to match bus lines to tennis courts. Actually this very analysis could be made via services that provide a visual interface such as Mapbox or CARTO.
I recommend watching this documentary where Roger Tomlinson ("father of GIS") is highlighted https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3VLGvWEuZxI
For those interested in learning to create maps on the web and visualize geospatial data CARTO also has a free MOOC site https://carto.com/academy/
Disclosure: I used to work at CARTO
pdepoulpiquet · 2023-12-25
Real life implementations:
https://developers.google.com/google-ads/api/docs/query/overview https://developer.intuit.com/app/developer/qbo/docs/learn/explore-the-… https://developer.salesforce.com/docs/atlas.en-us.soql_sosl.meta/soql_… https://carto.com/developers/sql-api/
From an end user standpoint, I preferred working with such API than with the ones creating nested json filters structures to model the filtering logic. It also provides a convenient way to select fields in the response, better in my opinion than "field mask" alternative that you can find on other APIs.
moklick · 2022-11-17
I'll add it. Carto just released a workflow editor for GIS data: https://carto.com/blog/introducing-carto-workflows/
ideamotor · 2021-08-04
I just keep getting faster at SQL. It's fun. I used CROSS LATERAL JOIN last night to find the nearest regions to points. Super fast and easy: https://carto.com/blog/lateral-joins/. Right on the data. SQL does change over time, as Postgres adds features, but especially when you use MADlib, Postgis, and other extensions. I mean ... https://postgis.net/docs/reference.html. And everything I learned when I started is still relevant. It's my go-to crunch tool for data processing.
chippy · 2021-07-19
the basemap is from Carto, which uses a range of sources including OpenStreetMap and is missing required attribution: https://carto.com/attribution/ https://carto.com/help/working-with-data/attribution/#basemaps
arunk-s · 2020-11-19
I definitely think they are used in production though I haven't tried it myself.
But I can find ancedots of people using it production on the web[1].
1: https://carto.com/blog/postgres-fdw/
jake-low · 2020-03-27
I don't think it's generally possible. The FIPS code just identifies the county (the first two digits are the state, e.g. 06 for California) and the final three identify a county in that state. So technically that column is redundant with the "county" and "state" columns; I suspect they've included it to make joining this dataset to other data that might use different name-formatting of counties/states easier.
ZIP/postal codes are generally smaller (in the county I live in there are almost a hundred ZIP codes). I'm not sure they're even guaranteed to be entirely within one county either. We tend to think of ZIP codes as boundaries but they're actually delivery routes (which if you squint can be converted into boundaries by joining the properties that those routes serve together).
You might be interested in this article: https://carto.com/blog/zip-codes-spatial-analysis/
danso · 2020-03-27
It's a good question, and unfortunately, the answer is that zipcode does not map well to other kinds of geographical regions, or to day-to-day-reality for that matter.
To directly answer your question, it is not uncommon for zipcodes to span county boundaries. And there are even a handful that span more than one state: https://gis.stackexchange.com/questions/53918/determining-which-us-zip…
To the broader question of why zip codes can be lacking for geospatial analysis, here's a real-world situation:
https://theconversation.com/how-zip-codes-nearly-masked-the-lead-probl…
Here's a more broader essay from CartoDB: https://carto.com/blog/zip-codes-spatial-analysis/
blauditore · 2018-07-24
Inspecting it shows that D3[0] and CARTO(.js)[1] are being used.
[0]: https://d3js.org/
[1]: https://carto.com/docs/carto-engine/carto-js/
chandlerswift · 2023-11-27
Would you please add an OpenStreetMap attribution[0]? It looks like you're using OSM data via OpenRailwayMap (which also requires its own attribution[1]) and Carto basemaps (which I'm not terribly familiar with, but at first glance appear to be based on OSM data[2])---each of which detail their respective attribution requirements.
Leaflet makes this incredibly simple; just add the suggested text to the attribution field when you initialize the layers:
L.tileLayer('https://
{s}.basemaps.cartocdn.com/light_all/
{z}/
{x}/
{y}
{r}.png',
{
maxZoom: 19,
attribution: '' // here!
}).addTo(map);
var railwayOverlay = L.tileLayer('https://
{s}.tiles.openrailwaymap.org/standard/
{z}/
{x}/
{y}.png',
{
attribution: '', // and here!
}).addTo(map);
[0]: https://www.openstreetmap.org/copyright
[1]: https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/OpenRailwayMap/API
[2]: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1P7bhSE-N9iegI398QYDjKeVhnbS7-Ilk/view via https://carto.com/legal