Adding region labels to map (spmap SSC package)

[Hale Isaac]

I am using spmap (M. Pisati - from SSC) to plot data on the map of England.

To add the labels to the map I create a separate .dta file containing just the x,y coordinates of the label markers and the accompanying text (region name). I am following the help file, however, the following code does not seem to produce what I need. The names of the regions appear to be clustered at the bottom of the figure.

Here is my code:

spmap avgrate_reg using ukcoord, label(data("colab.dta") x(X_) y(Y_) label(name) color(red)) id(reg_code) fcolor(Blues)

Where label data is the name of the .dta file, x and y are the x,y coordinates and "name" is the name of the variable containing the region names. This is the figure produced and an example of the .dta file used.

* Example generated by -dataex-. To install: ssc install dataex
clear
input double(X_ Y_) long name
-1.72888 55.29701 4
-2.77239 54.44944 5
-1.28714 53.93264 9
 -.84969 52.79572 1
-2.20358 52.55697 8
 .504207 52.24073 2
 -.30866 51.49227 3
 -.99311 51.45097 6
-3.63346 50.81119 7
end
label values name name
label def name 1 "East Midlands", modify
label def name 2 "East of England", modify
label def name 3 "London", modify
label def name 4 "North East", modify
label def name 5 "North West", modify
label def name 6 "South East", modify
label def name 7 "South West", modify
label def name 8 "West Midlands", modify
label def name 9 "Yorkshire and The Humber", modify