Put simply, mapping software is any app that can analyse data and present the results in a geographic format that is easy to understand. That data could be taken from a number of different places such as a spreadsheet or a database. As humans we respond better to colours, shapes and other memorable visual cues compared to lines of black and white information, which is why data maps work so well for displaying complex results.
There are numerous types of mapping software, with the key differentiators often what the output looks like. Heat maps, for example, can convey the prevalence of data using simple colours— dark reds representing high density, dark blues low. By comparison, numerical data maps might be used to convey the number of stores a business has in a nation’s towns and cities, while route maps could display the most likely journeys people take to visit stores based on customer addresses.