VISUALIZING AMERICA

just a dude & a vector map of the states

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One year in maps condensed to 15 seconds, (1/2,119,680 the original post-rate.)

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A year ago, on a whim, I decided to start this Tumblr. It was around election season, and maps of the US were everywhere, all red and blue. It got me thinking about maps, all the ways each state differs, and how you can show those differences in a map.

I'm still not entirely sure how I managed to do it, but I've been going for over a year, posting a map every other day. I've got 4.5 gigabytes of Illustrator documents on my computer now, making up a total of 186 different maps. The folder for this project clocks in at just under 7 gigabytes when all the other files are included.

I think that this one-year mark is a good transition date for the blog. I'm running out of subjects to map, and there are other projects out there I want to pursue. I might still make maps occasionally, but they won't follow the every-other-day-format that I've been following thus far. I've been playing around with new and different ways to work with the dataset that I've amassed, and that's exciting me a lot more than making more maps. I'll post updates on those to this Tumblr into the future, so keep tuned for those.

(I've also updated the site slightly: I've added a small index to the left side of the site, to make it easier to browse the maps that have been posted. For now, you can just look through them by state, but I might add categories or something else in the future.)

So thanks, everyone. Thanks for finding this blog and taking the time to check out what I've been doing. It's been an intense year, and I hope this next one is just as interesting and  fruitful as I explore the possibilities before me.

                                           —VA

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Based on Google Analytics, here is where most people who visited http://www.statemaps.tumblr.com/ were from.

Not surprisingly, the map pretty closely resembles a population map of the US, save for a few states that are darker than they should be otherwise. I'm guessing this is because of the state-dedicated Tumblrs that reblogged maps. (You guys know who you are. Shout out!)

Oh, and nobody from North Dakota, South Dakota, Nevada, Maine, Alaska, or Hawaii ever visited the site. For shame.

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Tomorrow is the one year anniversary for this blog, so I decided I'd look back at how many times I mentioned each state in the captions.

Turns out I didn't mention my home state of Michigan once in that year. Oops.

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In 2010, California saw a staggering 7,139,042 marijuana plants eradicated. For reference, the next highest was in West Virginia, which had 420,004 eradications, 17 times smaller.

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Along with prescription pain killers, the most meth busts that happened in 2010 were in the Southern states. Missouri in particular saw 2800 methamphetamine seizures by law enforcement.

New Mexico's pretty average. Sorry, guys.

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The non-medical usage of pain killers differs noticably from the general drug usage distribution: Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Tennessee seem to be the hotbed of pain killer usage in the States.

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With a non-representative sample of one national chain, I believe that those temporary halloween stores tend to primarily target suburban environments.

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The cocaine usage map for 2010 closely mirrors that of illegal drug usage in general. Rhode Island's still druggie heaven, for instance.

Arizona also stands out more on this map, indicating that an above average proportion of drug usage in that state might be cocaine consumption.

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The White House estimated that in 2010, 10.66% of the population of Rhode Island used drugs of some type, much higher than the national average of 6.4%. On the other side of the coin, 4.2% of Iowans used some sort of illegal drug.

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For the first time in history, in 2012, more female athletes represented the US than male US athletes.

For not the first time in history: athletes from California represented the US more than any other state by a long shot.

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When minor league teams are included, California and Florida's team counts both jump far ahead of any state, thanks to the Florida State League and the California League.

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California has 4 different NBA teams: the LA Clippers, the LA Lakers, the Golden State Warriors and the Sacramento Kings. All told, they make up 4 of the 5 teams in the Pacific division. 

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23 of the 30 NHL teams are located in the US, the rest belonging to Canadian cities. The deep South is represented a little less heavily in hockey compared to football.

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The state with the most NFL teams per capita is Missouri (1 team per ~3,000,000), followed by Louisiana (~1:4,600,000). 

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The state with the least elevation change is Florida, with a difference of just 345 feet between the highest and lowest points. Delaware is second flattest, and Louisiana is third. 

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The highest low point of any state is in Colorado, where the elevation is 3,350 feet where the Arkansas river leaves the state. Following closely is Wyoming at 3,099 feet.