Geospatial Reference Map

Sichuan-Yunnan Altitude & Transit Map

A single bilingual reference map covering western Sichuan and northern Yunnan, combining altitude, attractions, towns, and transit infrastructure in one view — built to make a high-altitude travel-medicine consult faster than flipping between several regional maps.

QGIS Cartography Travel Medicine CC BY-NC-ND 4.0
View on GitHub ↗
Chengdu-Lijiang-Yala-Kunming-Genie-Yading-Leshan altitude and transit reference map with bilingual place labels and elevation figures
Problem

Since Thailand's visa-free travel policy expanded access to China, travel-medicine consults for high-altitude Sichuan itineraries — Yading, Litang, Kangding, Siguniangshan, Shangri-La, Jiuzhaigou — have risen noticeably. Advising a patient on altitude-illness risk needs a single, at-a-glance view of where they're going and how high, but existing maps split each attraction or region onto separate sheets, and mix Chinese place names, English place names, and altitude figures in ways that are slow to read in a time-pressured consult. There was no single map that let a physician walk a patient through a whole multi-stop itinerary's altitude profile in one view.

Approach

Built in QGIS as a large-format reference map spanning Chengdu, Lijiang, Yading, and Kunming, layering altitude figures in meters, categorized markers (towns, parks, attractions, airports, train stations) with a consistent color legend, and road and rail routes connecting every location — with bilingual Chinese/English labels throughout, so nothing requires a separate lookup.

The current published version is a high-resolution static export rather than an interactive web map — a deliberate choice for a reference asset meant to be glanced at quickly during a consult, not navigated.

Outcome

A personal clinical reference tool, released publicly on GitHub under a share-with-attribution, no-derivatives license, consistent with sharing a finished reference asset rather than an editable template. The map explicitly disclaims authority over administrative boundaries and invites corrections.

This is a static reference map, not a live or interactive tool — the GitHub link above is the current published version. Place names and altitude figures were manually researched and compiled; treat it as a travel-medicine planning aid, not an authoritative geographic or administrative source.
Tech Stack
QGIS GitHub (versioned release)