Hi,

As you could tell from my name, my purpose for Inkscape at least for now is pretty specific - making maps.

Specifically, Wikipedia-like maps of the world and individual countries color coded to different social, economic, and political indicators. Nothing particularly complex or interactive, I'm talking something as basic as this. Or this. I am hoping to find a process for this kind of mapmaking that is more efficient and aesthically pleasing and precise than filling it in manually on paint or GIMP.

Any advice on where to start would be much appreciated. I played around a bit with a world svg map and the XML editor after downloading Inkscape today, though I couldn't find the id's associated with individual countries; it only seemed to recognize individual bits of border.

Ideally, I would like to find some system where you could take an SVG file, combine it with a cvs file with data for the various countries/regions, and have it automatically fill up with a custom color code. Though I doubt Inkscape is exactly the tool for that...

Hello,
I haven't worked so much with that kind of use for Inkscape.
Some time ago, I got the requirement to draw some borders in a sketch-cartoon style. My first source of information was obviously, wikipedia. Those maps that you obtained, do you also get them for wikipedia?

Other source is the openstreetmap project
https://www.openstreetmap.org/

There are options to export their maps to svg, but you have to work hard cleaning of unneccesary data, or unnceccesary svg code (clips and groups)

Other fountains of information, are those related to GIS programs. There are also opensource GIS projects like:
http://www2.qgis.org/
I haven't tryed but I suppose that if you found a forum or a mailing list related, you could get source maps for your requirements

Once you have the map, export in SVG, and you will see what can you do and what can't with Inkscape.

About combining SVG with scripts, and data bases, We are all interested in that... The tools exist, the knowledge too,... but the cook for all those??.... I don't know.

Hi.

Making maps is easy if you are willing to learn "a little" python programming.
(Having a little python knowledge will be like having a toolbox full of tools
for almost any task at hand - it's even useful for extending the capabilities of Inkscape )

Have a look at these;
kartograph.org
plotting-points-on-a-simple-map
Matplotlib & Basemap
rendering_country_maps

You might want to check out O-Skape Extensions.
Not sure if it's updated for Inkscape .91, but I know it works in Inkscape .48.
http://www.nopesport.com/news/1343-o-scape-free-orienteering-mapping-software
https://sourceforge.net/projects/o-scape/