Afterwards, within the analysis and concept phase, the foundations for the next steps, the design of the map and the map content are determined. The analysis of the topic and the elaboration of the theme structure form the mental basis, which is followed by thoughts such as:

1. Familiarization of the topic, researching and determining which sources to use (e.g. reports, literature, atlases, magazines, but also newspaper articles and possibly domain experts to address specific questions).
2. Which questions should be answered by the map later-on? Which geometric reference does the attribute data have? Do they reference points, lines or areas? Are the data of nominal, ordinal or numerical scale? On which level should these information be made available to the user, depending on the user group?
3. According to Imhof (1972) ordering, classifying and summarizing provides the structure of the content, which has to be set to the beginning of each mapping project, because it is part of the mental preparation. The graphical construction is undertaken at a later point in time.