Methods for visualizing mainland China’s floating migration: A critical assessment

Abstract

As one of the most conspicuous consequences of the household registration (hukou) system, China’s so-called ‘floating migration’ has attracted a lot of interest across scholarly disciplines. In this research note, we argue that our understanding of the geographies of this floating migration can be enhanced through appealing visualizations of the migration flows, as these can be useful background references in a range of academic studies. Research on the effective visualization of dense spatial networks — of which China’s floating migration is a good example — is rapidly gaining pace, and here we explore the potential of different visualization techniques. We discuss and compare different visualization techniques, analyze what insights can be gleaned from these, and suggest which techniques best fit what purposes.