Overlay GraphPlot on maps

GraphPlot is one of the most interesting and powerful function in Mathematica. Here comes up a simple demonstration to show how to overlay the Graph on top of the map. The key is to use VertexCoordinateRules option to place the each vertex in the right place.

The following graph is the adjacency graph for countries in South America.
Using the location of capital cities as vertex coordinates seems a good choice. So combining CountryData and CityData, the location list of {country->{lon, lat of capital city}} is created.

{{"Argentina" -> {-58.37, -34.61}, "Bolivia" -> {-68.15, -16.5}, "Brazil" -> {-47.91, -15.78}, "Chile" -> {-70.64, -33.46}, "Colombia" -> {-74.09, 4.63}, "Ecuador" -> {-78.5, -0.19}, "FrenchGuiana" -> {-52.34, 4.92}, "Guyana" -> {-58.16, 6.79}, "Paraguay" -> {-57.63, -25.3}, "Peru" -> {-77.05, -12.07}, "Suriname" -> {-55.2, 5.85}, "Uruguay" -> {-56.17, -34.87}, "Venezuela" -> {-66.93, 10.54}}

Redraw the graph with VertexCoordinateRules -> locationlist


Then show it with the map


It is kind of silly in certain way to overlap the adjacency graph on top of the map. However, the graph delivers the information more clearly, you can spot it immediately that Brazil has the largest number of neighbors in South America.