Drawing a graph with NetworkX on a Basemap

Here is one way to do it:

import networkx as nx
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
from mpl_toolkits.basemap import Basemap as Basemap
m = Basemap(
        projection='merc',
        llcrnrlon=-130,
        llcrnrlat=25,
        urcrnrlon=-60,
        urcrnrlat=50,
        lat_ts=0,
        resolution='i',
        suppress_ticks=True)

# position in decimal lat/lon
lats=[37.96,42.82]
lons=[-121.29,-73.95]
# convert lat and lon to map projection
mx,my=m(lons,lats)

# The NetworkX part
# put map projection coordinates in pos dictionary
G=nx.Graph()
G.add_edge('a','b')
pos={}
pos['a']=(mx[0],my[0])
pos['b']=(mx[1],my[1])
# draw
nx.draw_networkx(G,pos,node_size=200,node_color='blue')

# Now draw the map
m.drawcountries()
m.drawstates()
m.bluemarble()
plt.title('How to get from point a to point b')
plt.show()

As of today there is a nice alternative to basemap. Mplleaflet is a library inspired by mpld3. It plots faster than basemap, is more easy to use and allows to visualizing geographic data on beautiful interactive openstreetmap. The input can be longitude and latitude the library automatically projects the data properly.

Input dictionary pos, where the node (country) is the key and long lat are saved as value.

 pos = {u'Afghanistan': [66.00473365578554, 33.83523072784668],
 u'Aland': [19.944009818523348, 60.23133494165451],
 u'Albania': [20.04983396108883, 41.14244989474517],
 u'Algeria': [2.617323009197829, 28.158938494487625],
 .....

Plotting is as easy as:

import mplleaflet

fig, ax = plt.subplots()

nx.draw_networkx_nodes(GG,pos=pos,node_size=10,node_color='red',edge_color='k',alpha=.5, with_labels=True)
nx.draw_networkx_edges(GG,pos=pos,edge_color='gray', alpha=.1)
nx.draw_networkx_labels(GG,pos, label_pos =10.3)

mplleaflet.display(fig=ax.figure)