1. If you are new to Django, check out the official Django tutorial at https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/intro/tutorial01/ and then return to this recipe.

2. Create a Python virtualenv (http://www.virtualenv.org/en/latest/) to create an isolated Python environment to use with the web application you will build in this recipe and the next. Then, activate the environment as follows:

• • Use the following commands in Linux:

                $ cd ~/virtualenvs/
                $ virtualenv --no-site-packages chp09-env
                $ source chp09-env/bin/activate

• • Type the following commands in Windows (for steps to install virtualenv on Windows, refer to https://zignar.net/2012/06/17/install-python-on-windows/):

                cd c:\virtualenvs
                C:\Python27\Scripts\virtualenv.exe 
                -no-site-packages chp09-env
                chp09-env\Scripts\activate

3. Once activated, you can install the Python packages that you will use for this recipe as well as the next, using the pip tool (http://www.pip-installer.org/en/latest/).

• • In Linux, the command would be as follows:

                (chp09-env)$ pip install django==1.10
                (chp09-env)$ pip install psycopg2==2.7
                (chp09-env)$ pip install Pillow

• • In Windows, the command would be as follows:

                (chp09-env) C:\virtualenvs> pip install django==1.10
                (chp09-env) C:\virtualenvs> pip install psycopg2=2.7
                (chp09-env) C:\virtualenvs> easy_install Pillow

4. If you haven't done it so far, download the world countries shapefile from http://thematicmapping.org/downloads/TM_WORLD_BORDERS-0.3.zip. A copy of this shapefile is included in the code bundle of this book. Extract the shapefile to the working/chp09 directory.