# Archive for the ‘Maps’ Category:

### Assembling the USA state-by-state with state-level statistics

Posted In: Maps

#### Watch the United States assemble state by state based on statistics of interest

Based on earlier popularity of the country-by-country animation, this map lets you watch as the world is built-up one state at a time. This can be done along a large range of statistical dimensions:

• Name (alphabetical)
• abbreviation
• Date of entry to the United States
• State Population (2018)
• Population per Electoral Vote (2018)
• Population per House Seat (2018)
• Land Area (square miles)
• Population Density (ppl per sq mi) (2018)
• State’s Highest Point
• Highest Elevation (ft)
• Mean Elevation (ft)
• State’s Lowest Point
• Lowest Point (ft)
• Life Expectancy at Birth (yrs)
• Median Age (yrs)
• Percent with High School Education
• Percent with Bachelor’s Degree
• Residential Electricity Price (cents per kWh) (2018)
• Gasoline Price ($/gal) Regular unleaded (2019) • State Gross Domestic Product GDP ($Million) (2018)
• GDP per capita (\$/capita)
• Number of Counties (or subdivisions)
• Average Daily Solar Radiation (kWh/m2)
• Birth rate (per thousand population)
• Avg Age of Mother at Birth
• Annual Precipitation (in/yr)
• Average Temperature (deg F)
• These statistics can be sorted from small to large or vice versa to get a view of the US and its constituent states plus DC in a unique and interesting way. It’s a bit hypnotic to watch as the states appear and add to the country one by one.

You can use this map to display all the states that have higher life expectancy than the Texas:
select “Life expectancy”, sort from “high to low” and use the scroll bar to move to the Texax and you’ll get a picture like this:

or this map to display all the states that have higher population density than California:
select “Population density, sort from “high to low” and use the scroll bar to move to the United States and you’ll get a picture like this:

I hope you enjoy exploring the United States through a number of different demographic, economic and physical characteristics through this data viz tool. And if you have ideas for other statistics to add, I will try to do so.

• Population https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_states_and_territories_of_the_United_States_by_population
• Educational attainment https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d18/tables/dt18_104.88.asp
• Highest points https://geology.com/state-high-points.shtml
• Life expectancy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territories_by_life_expectancy
• Median Age http://www.statemaster.com/graph/peo_med_age-people-median-age
• Land area https://statesymbolsusa.org/symbol-official-item/national-us/uncategorized/states-size
• Mean elevation https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2011/compendia/statab/131ed/geography-environment.html
• Electricity price https://www.chooseenergy.com/electricity-rates-by-state/
• Gasoline price https://gasprices.aaa.com/state-gas-price-averages/
• GDP https://www.bea.gov/data/gdp/gdp-state
• Sunlight North America Land Data Assimilation System (NLDAS) Daily Sunlight (insolation) for years 1979-2011 on CDC WONDER Online Database, released 2013. Accessed at http://wonder.cdc.gov/NASA-INSOLAR.html on Jun 14, 2019 1:37:15 PM
• Births United States Department of Health and Human Services (US DHHS), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS), Division of Vital Statistics, Natality public-use data 2007-2017, on CDC WONDER Online Database, October 2018. Accessed at http://wonder.cdc.gov/natality-current.html on Jun 14, 2019 1:53:58 PM
• Precipitation North America Land Data Assimilation System (NLDAS) Daily Precipitation for years 1979-2011 on CDC WONDER Online Database, released 2013. Accessed at http://wonder.cdc.gov/NASA-Precipitation.html on Jun 26, 2019 3:30:40 PM
• Temperature http://www.usa.com/rank/us–average-temperature–state-rank.htm

The map was created with the help of the open source leaflet javascript mapping library

### Sizing the States Based On Electoral Votes

Posted In: Maps | Voting

#### Electoral Vote maps give more visual power to states with large areas but few electoral votes

This map shows the electoral outcome of the 2016 US Presidential Election and is color coded red if the state was won by Donald Trump (R) and blue if the state was won by Hilary Clinton. When looking at the map, red states tend to be larger in area than blue states, but also generally have lower populations. This gives a misleading impression that the electoral share is “redder” than it actually is. For 2016, we can see that Trump won 306 electoral votes or (57% of the total electoral votes), but the map is shaded such that 73% of the area of the US is colored red. Similarly, Clinton won 232 electoral votes, but the map is shaded such that only 27% of the map is colored blue.

The map shrinks the states with low electoral votes relative to its area and increases the size of states with large numbers of electoral votes relative to its area. On average blue states grow as they are under-represented visually, while red states tend to shrink quite a bit because they are over-represented visually. Alaska is the state that shrinks the most and DC and New Jersey are the areas that grow the most in the new map.

I think this gives a more accurate picture of how the states voted because it also gives a sense of the relative weight of those states votes. Even with the change in sizes, the map is still mostly red, but gives a better sense of how close the electoral vote totals are.

Data and Tools:
Data on electoral votes is from Wikipedia. The map was made using the leaflet open source mapping library. Data was compiled and calculations on resizing states were made using javascript.

### Assembling the World Country-By-Country

Posted In: Maps

#### Watch the world assemble country-by-country based on a specific statistic

This map lets you watch as the world is built-up one country at a time. This can be done along the following statistical dimensions:

• Country name
• Population – from United Nations (2017)
• GDP – from United Nations (2017)
• GDP per capita
• GDP per area
• Land Area – from CIA factbook (2016)
• Population density
• Life expectancy – from World Health Organization (2015)
• or a random order

These statistics can be sorted from small to large or vice versa to get a view of the globe and its constituent countries in a unique and interesting way. It’s a bit hypnotic to watch as the countries appear and add to the world one by one.

You can use this map to display all the countries that have higher life expectancy than the United States:
select “Life expectancy”, sort from “high to low” and use the scroll bar to move to the United States and you’ll get a picture like this:

or this map to display all the countries that have higher population density than the United States:
select “Population density, sort from “high to low” and use the scroll bar to move to the United States and you’ll get a picture like this:

I hope you enjoy exploring the countries of the world through this data viz tool. And if you have ideas for other statistics to add, I will try to do so.

Data and tools: Data was downloaded primarily from Wikipedia: Life expectancy from World Health Organization (2015) | GDP from United Nations (2017) | Population from United Nations (2017) | Land Area from CIA factbook (2016)
The map was created with the help of the open source leaflet javascript mapping library

### World Population Distribution by Latitude and Longitude

Posted In: Maps

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#### How is population distributed by latitude and longitude

This interactive map shows how population is distributed by latitude or longitude. It animates the creation of a bar graph by shifting population from its location on the map to aggregate population levels by latitude or longitude increments. Each “block” of the bar graph represents 1 million people. Population is highest in the northern hemisphere at 25-26 degrees North latitude and 77-78 degrees East Longitude.

#### Instructions:

It should be relatively explanatory. Press the “Aggregate Population by Latitude” button to make a plot of population by line of latitude (i.e. rows of the map).
Press the “Aggregate Population by Longitude” button to make a plot of population by line of longitude (i.e. columns of the map). To see the population distributed across the map, press the “Show Population Grid” button.

This map was inspired by some mapping work done by neilrkaye on twitter and reddit.

Data Sources and Tools:
This map projection is an equirectangular projection. Data on population density comes from NASA’s Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC) site and is displayed at the 1 degree resolution. This interactive visualization is made using the awesome leaflet.js javascript library.

### Size of California Economy Compared to Rest of US

Posted In: Maps | Money

California is one of the world’s largest economies (as measured by gross domestic product), currently ranking 5th in the world (if it were judged as it’s own country). This map divides the rest of the US economy into 6 more or less equal parts (each the size of California’s) and they are all within about 10% of each other.

Instructions:
You can hover over a state with your cursor to get more information about the GDP of that state and the group of states that equal California’s economy.

Gross domestic product is a measurement of the size of a region’s economy. It is the sum of gross value added from all entities in the region or state. It measures the monetary value of the goods produced and services provided in a year.

The main sectors of the California economy are agriculture, technology, tourism, media (movies and TV) and trade. Some of the world’s largest and most famous companies contribute to the California economy, like Apple, Google, Facebook, Disney, and Chevron.

Data and Tools:
Data for state level GDP is obtained from Wikipedia for the year 2017. The map data is processed in javascript and then plotted using the leaflet.js mapping library.

### Antipodes map: What’s on the other side of the Earth?

Posted In: Fun | Maps

#### What is an antipode?

An antipode is a point that is on the exact opposite side of the earth (or other sphere) from a given location. If you drew a line (vector) from your location to the center of the earth and continued that line until it emerged from the other side of the earth’s surface, that point of intersection on the other side is the antipode. When I was a kid, people occasionally mentioned “digging a hole to China”. While this is currently impossible for many reasons1Earth’s core is about 6000 degrees C, China is not the antipode for North America (where I grew up). If you grew up in Argentina or Chile, then maybe that would make a little more sense.

The antipodes for most of North America and Europe are in the Indian and South Pacific oceans respectively.

Other examples of antipodes that are both on land:

#### Instructions:

It should be relatively explanatory, but you find your location by dragging the globe on the left side so that your location is in the center crosshair. The other globe (on the right) will show you the antipode to your location.
You can zoom in and out with the +/- buttons or pinch to zoom on mobile. If you zoom in enough, it will look like a normal two-dimensional web map (like google maps).

Tools:
This interactive visualization is made using the awesome webglearth javascript library. I just discovered this recently after making a number of 2D maps.

Footnotes   [ + ]

 1 ↑ Earth’s core is about 6000 degrees C