For every Internet commenter who enters online arguments about the USA with facts they got from their butt, there's a map that presents hard data bare and allows the viewers to make their own interpretations.
From light pollution and tree coverage to out-of-service railways and streets and highways, maps may not immediately look as exciting as a viral cat video -- which might explain why we often overlook them when -- but that doesn't mean that are boring. To prove that, we put together a selection of maps that explain the United States better then most textbooks and if broadening your worldview isn't thrilling, I don't know what is.
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Most Commonly Spoken Language In The Us After English And Spanish
There’s often overlapping features between maps. For example, a topographic map could be utilized to show the distribution of a local orchid, making it both a topographic and thematic map. It could also be used to show well-known features of specific interest to travelers making this topographic, general reference, and thematic maps all in one.
The most widely used maps are “Political maps”. They are the ones that are usually mounted on the walls of classrooms throughout the world. They show the geographic boundaries between governmental units such as countries, states, and counties. They show roads, cities, and major water features such as oceans, rivers, and lakes.
The United States Of America: Alaskan Perspective
Political maps are really good at helping people to understand the geography of the world. They are usually the first type of map that students are introduced to in school, too. They are often called “reference maps” because people refer to them again and again when they have questions.
According to Geology.com, thousands of different political reference maps have been prepared to explain the United States. There are maps of the entire nation, maps for each of the 50 states, and even maps of the 3142 counties (parishes in Louisiana, and boroughs in Alaska) that make up the states. Most counties, boroughs, and parishes are further subdivided into even smaller political units. An incredible number of political maps have been prepared just to display the geography of the United States alone.
How I, A Brit, See The United States (Sorry If It Offends Anyone)
Patrick McGranaghan, who is a land surveyor in Colorado, USA, and the creator of one of the biggest online cartography communities, r/MapPorn, did an analysis on its most popular posts on Twitter. McGranaghan collected the 10 best-performing posts from the previous 18 months -- about 200 maps in total -- and went through each of them individually, tagging them based on the content, style, and subject matter. He then sorted the tags to see which ones were the most common.
States With A Smaller Population Than Los Angeles County
This is why our voting system is insane. (It was designed for a different view of government, where the states govern the people and the federal government is the government of the states, but now that it doesn't operate at all like that, it doesn't make any sense.)
I would argue that this is why our voting system makes perfect sense. Without the electoral college, the few major cities would be making decisions for the entire country.
Load More Replies...This fact is exactly why we have the electoral college! So that the blue states are not forgotten and their views & votes are heard!!
This is an illustration of the importance of the Electoral College.
This is an illustration of why the EC needs to be abolished.
Load More Replies...LA County has half the population of Australia....the entire country
This why the electoral college is so important, LA county shouldn't have more power than an entire state
So the votes of people living in LA count less then the votes of some other states? How is this fair?
Load More Replies...Yet Los Angeles doesn't get two senators like the rest of the states.
For reference: "According to the most recent United States Census, Los Angeles County in California is the largest county in the nation, with a total population of 10,150,558." (~10M)
This is sad - powering CA, particularly LA County, is expensive and difficult. so many people live there and it's not meant to be inhabited like it is.
Actually was genius ! Otherwise only 2-3 states would get attention and power. Some just aren’t capable to know when a political Party feigns Indignation fooling dupes AGAIN !
The reality is people who don't really care about democracy (read GOP, who have spent years trying to disenfranchise and literally block people from voting) are going to be for the electoral college. It is an affront to true democracy. To say all states should have an equal say is just stupid. CA has 38million people, Montana has 1million. Hopefully NPVIC will go into effect and we can be done with this anti-democratic, archaic system. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Popular_Vote_Interstate_Compact
This is also why we have a Senate and House of Representatives, so we don't have one small area OR one big area running amok over the rest of the Nation. Checks and Balances...One draft of our Constitution wanted the House or Representatives to select the President and the Senate to select the Vice President. Yet another "flavor" had the Winner of the Popular Vote becoming the President and the second place contender be the Vice-President...
Funny how no one b***h about Obama sweeping the Electoral College twice. The only time you hear complaints is when Democrats lose elections.
Um, Duh, President Obama beat McCain by 10 million votes, and Romney by 5 million. tRump lost to HRC by 3million plus. Get it FFS?
Load More Replies...I think this map is deceptive. It seems to imply, visually, that the population of the 44 states is less than that of LA county. It is simply that each state has a population that is less than LA county's (10,105,500).
Good job dude. You ACTUALLY got what was trying to be conveyed 👏
Load More Replies...And how may people in Los Angeles County are there illegally ? What % are non-white ? Are White people the true minority in most States now?
What does that have to do with voting? Noncitizens can’t vote.
Load More Replies...One person, one vote. We should hold our presidential elections the same way we hold all other elections: the primaries would all be held on the same date in each state, and then the general election would be composed of the top vote getter in each party. This removes the states as separate entities and fully reflects the will of the people as a whole.
So that one county can make decisions for everyone else? Get rid of winner takes all but keep the EC.
Load More Replies...Missouri has a population of 6.137 million as of 2019. Los Angeles County has 10.04 million as of 2019. Also remember it’s not just the city, it’s the whole county where the are a lot of big cities with populations exceeding 30,000 such as Santa Monica (91,411), Long Beach (467,354), Beverly Hills (34,183), and West Hollywood (36,854) and this list doesn’t include all the Beach Cities and the rest of the inland cities.
Load More Replies...Oh for heaven sakes. The comparison is the COUNTY. it’s not false just because you want to argue with it. It’s actually possible to compare any US county to a state. 🙄🙄😂
Load More Replies..."The most popular subject was history," McGranaghan told Bored Panda. "In this category, the most popular maps were about World War II." Maps about other wars were also well liked, as well as those about the ancient Romans and historic trade routes.
"Another popular category was natural science. Especially popular are maps about wildlife, such as those that use tracking data to show animal migration patterns. Other topics included geology and astronomic maps."
Interestingly, quite a few viral maps focused on language. These include etymology, dialect and various pronunciation maps.
US Watersheds
"Another topic that I grouped together are 'political re-alignments'. These are maps that deal with boundaries. Subjects like separatist movements, re-drawing borders, and user-created idealizations. Many of these are satirical and funny," McGranaghan explained.
McGranaghan, however, wouldn't say that all of these maps are scientific. "I think the data is a bit noisy, but it's interesting nonetheless. Users sometimes want a magic formula to make their maps go viral and I don't think there is one. The tastes of the masses are fickle and change over time."
Red And Orange Areas Have Equal Populations
This is not at all surprising, since nearly half the population in this country lives within 30 miles of the coast.
When it comes to maps that best describe a country, McGranaghan thinks that it depends on the goal of the mapmaker. "All maps are generalizations, some good, some bad. They are not true representations and a good 'reader' should know that. I think good data visualization will take disparate datasets and find meaningful connections that weren't known before. It sounds simple but it is not so straightforward. A good mapmaker should be familiar with many matrices of knowledge and should be able to sift through them and make new connections."
McGranaghan created r/MapPorn in May 2011 while living in Taiwan, and it currently has over 995K members. He thinks the reason why the community is becoming so big is the same one why people like maps so much: they are easily digestible. So go ahead folks, continue scrolling and enjoy the rest of the post. Bon appétit!
United States Population Lines
The Most Efficient Route Between Every Springfield In The United States
Tree Cover Map Of The US
How Much Snow Does It Usually Take To Cancel Schools?
Nice. I always get a kick out of the places that close school for an inch of snow. You don't even need to wear a coat for 1" of snow.
Most Common Surname In The United States By State
Every State's Least Favorite State
Its Very Interesting
More People Live Inside The Red Area Than The Grey Area
... and this is the downfall of the American election system called the electoral college.
Drug Overdose Deaths In The United States Per 100,000 Persons For 1999 And 2014
US States Scaled Proportionally To Population Density
The Loudest And Quietest Spots In The Continental US
my house is in the border of very loud and very quiet. I can hear trains, a freeway, coyote howls, and owls hooting.
Out Of Service Railways
The U.S. Mapped By Residents’ Desire To Move To A Different State
Use Of The Word "Dang" Across The Continental US
How America Utilizes Its Land
Percentage Of People Born Outside The U.S. In Each State
Regions Of The U.S. That Don't Officially Celebrate Christopher Columbus Day
Popular Coffee Shop Chains By Number Of Locations
Map Of Lowest Recorded Temperature In Each Us State (Fahrenheit)
This is Hilarious to me, my ex-husband was raised in Alaska from 7 year's old until 22 year's old & heard a ton of weather stories 😅 😄 😂 😆 🙃 🤣 😅 😄 I've been there 4 time's but alway's in summer though!
Light Pollution In The United States
Air Traffic Control Zones In The USA
U.S. Education Spending Map
Explains why so many US citizens show a heartbreaking ignorance and why a guy like Trump could become president.
Map Of The United States' 8 Million Miles Of Roads, Streets And Highways
USA Tree Diversity
Garbage Can vs. Trash Can In The United States
Portion Of Each State That Is Federal Land
All U.S. Counties With In-N-Out Burger As Of May 2020
A Tastier Map
Date Of Creation Of All 3,142 U.S. Counties
US Governors By Eye Color
Voters Who Didn't Vote For Hillary Or Trump
Average Size Of US Apartments By Region
Results Of The 1984 United States Presidential Election By County. The Most Lopsided Election In History, The Only State Reagan Failed To Win Was His Opponent’s, Minnesota
In reverse, this must be the outcome of the 2020 election. Trump is setting up the "corrupt election" playbook so that when he loses, he can claim the election was fraudulent. We need to do the same thing Reagan did and OVERWHELMINGLY vote the morbidly obese pathological lying vindictive narcissistic imbecile with the emotional maturity of a toddler (AKA tRump) out of office.
US Counties With Gdp Over $100b
USA Country Map Divided By 1/3rds Of Covid Deaths
As an American, I would be really interested in seeing maps like these for the UK and Europe.
Ooooh, id love to see that. You could use adoption data. You could also do one by most spent on vet bills and most food and toys purchased.
Load More Replies...Very interesting set of maps. I just wish they had a higher res ones because some of them were really hard to read.
yes and even if you could read them I still didn't understand some of them, like the light pollution one? Maybe I'm alone but whatever I just agree with jamie1707
Load More Replies...Trump wanted the electoral college defunded because he's against all that fancy edjumacation. His magic 8-ball beats any stupid scientists and their technologeez and advanced mints any day!
Load More Replies...more, please! Ma, Mom, Mama, Momma, Mother etc; Dad, Pop, Papa, Pa, Father, etc; education - and types of education; sleep patterns; loneliness; favorite fairy tales . . .
Most of those were interesting. The political ones, not so much. People's remarks just get rabid.
Quite annoying that when I entered a comment, you wanted me to log in. After I did so, I was taken back to the top of the story and when I scrolled down to see my comment, it had been disappeared. If it "works as designed", the designers need another needs analysis session.
I enjoy these maps. When we were looking for job interviews in locations we would like to live, we shaded areas color coded for forest, climate and bear habitat, correlated with job openings. Then we constructed a travel plan to interview in those places. It was remarkably effective strategy, and helped us focus our search. Searching by animal habitat was interesting as well.
The waffle house map doesn't make sense. The numbers are wrong if this is number of individual stores.
Awesome information. How did they find this information and I can’t find specific information shopping on the internet? I ask for “x” and “a,” “b,” “y,” and “z.”
What great way to show people why we have an electoral college, and why we WONT let California or New York elect our president...
Tyranny to the minority is soo MUCH better than tyranny to the majority. /s
Load More Replies...Pro tip; if you want people to take you seriously, learn how to spell
Load More Replies...None of this had anything to do with that. If you're going to take a poke at us, at least make it relevant.
Load More Replies...I don't think you realize how large the United States is. Many of our states are larger than European countries.
Load More Replies...The name of the continent is North America. Even if one accepts the argument that N and S America are a single continent, the accepted demonym for citizens of the USA is "American".
Load More Replies...As an American, I would be really interested in seeing maps like these for the UK and Europe.
Ooooh, id love to see that. You could use adoption data. You could also do one by most spent on vet bills and most food and toys purchased.
Load More Replies...Very interesting set of maps. I just wish they had a higher res ones because some of them were really hard to read.
yes and even if you could read them I still didn't understand some of them, like the light pollution one? Maybe I'm alone but whatever I just agree with jamie1707
Load More Replies...Trump wanted the electoral college defunded because he's against all that fancy edjumacation. His magic 8-ball beats any stupid scientists and their technologeez and advanced mints any day!
Load More Replies...more, please! Ma, Mom, Mama, Momma, Mother etc; Dad, Pop, Papa, Pa, Father, etc; education - and types of education; sleep patterns; loneliness; favorite fairy tales . . .
Most of those were interesting. The political ones, not so much. People's remarks just get rabid.
Quite annoying that when I entered a comment, you wanted me to log in. After I did so, I was taken back to the top of the story and when I scrolled down to see my comment, it had been disappeared. If it "works as designed", the designers need another needs analysis session.
I enjoy these maps. When we were looking for job interviews in locations we would like to live, we shaded areas color coded for forest, climate and bear habitat, correlated with job openings. Then we constructed a travel plan to interview in those places. It was remarkably effective strategy, and helped us focus our search. Searching by animal habitat was interesting as well.
The waffle house map doesn't make sense. The numbers are wrong if this is number of individual stores.
Awesome information. How did they find this information and I can’t find specific information shopping on the internet? I ask for “x” and “a,” “b,” “y,” and “z.”
What great way to show people why we have an electoral college, and why we WONT let California or New York elect our president...
Tyranny to the minority is soo MUCH better than tyranny to the majority. /s
Load More Replies...Pro tip; if you want people to take you seriously, learn how to spell
Load More Replies...None of this had anything to do with that. If you're going to take a poke at us, at least make it relevant.
Load More Replies...I don't think you realize how large the United States is. Many of our states are larger than European countries.
Load More Replies...The name of the continent is North America. Even if one accepts the argument that N and S America are a single continent, the accepted demonym for citizens of the USA is "American".
Load More Replies...