Recently, in the papers and documents related to earth science, it is necessary to draw an overview map of the research area. For this kind of pictures, I personally prefer to draw based on the combination of ArcMap and PPT. The specific operation is as follows.

Of course, first of all, I'd like to mention: When you draw relevant maps of China (especially the map of China in this article), you must pay attention to the details of the South China Sea Islands, the Shiduan Line, southern Tibet, Aksai Chin and so on.

Let's take a look at the result chart first:

Without further ado, let's start painting. First, let's make a picture. Import national vector layers (including South China Sea Islands) in ArcMap; Then, modify the map symbology and remember to import ten lines.

Secondly, introduce the research field of this paper and modify the symbol system at the same time.

When finished, we switch to Layout View, adjust the range and size, and export the map as follows. Because it is a sub-map, there is no need to adjust the map elements, map borders and other contents for the time being.

Set output properties.

Then, create a new PPT file and import the newly generated pictures into PPT.

If the picture in PPT is not clear, you can set the compression option of the picture in PPT file as follows.

Next, we draw the main map. Import related layers such as study area and water body, and configure symbol system.

Import compass, scale bar, legend, etc.

My proportional attribute is set as follows.

Next, we need to set a grid on the picture border. Right-click the study area layer and select Properties.

Select "New Grid".

We can choose the first one.

It is good to set an interval first, but it can be adjusted later anyway.

After the completion, you can see that the border grid of the picture is a bit dense and ugly.

We will select "Properties" in the properties interface.

Select Interval and configure the appropriate latitude and longitude interval.

As you can see, the spacing has been modified, but the font is very small.

You can modify the font and font size in the following interface.

Then in the following interface, modify the area where the latitude and longitude grid symbols appear; Because you don't need a picture with latitude and longitude and four borders, it will look bloated. Just pick two.

For the sake of beauty, point the lines protruding from the grid to the inside of the screen.

Later, because my research area is relatively large and the latitude and longitude changes greatly, there is no need to look at the minute and second data, so I directly choose the minute and second data that is not displayed as 0.

In addition, when adding a legend, you can directly modify what is displayed in the legend box in the layer properties.

The final drawings are as follows:

Then export. The dpi of the main picture can be set larger and the resolution is higher. Then the newly generated graph is also imported into PPT.

Then, we use arrows to represent the relationship between the main diagram and the auxiliary diagram.

As shown below.

We can also use the rectangle tool to frame the research area in the subgraph, which is more intuitive.

Finally, all the contents in PPT are selected and combined, and then exported or copied into picture format later.