Maps that caught my eye.

This map comes from a website which is titled "Maps and catograms of the 2004 US presidential election results" by Michael Gastner, Cosma Shalizi, and Mark Newman from the University of Michigan. This map indicates the number of Republican and Democratic votes during the 2004 presidential election. What I found interesting about this map is that although there appears to be a dramatic contrast between red and blue, the difference between the two parties' votes is not that extreme. While I was reading the description, the author reminded us that the inner states have lower populations than the outer states, which are mostly blue. After taking this into consideration, the map is no longer as extreme as it appears to be. This made me think that the map might be biased because one who looks at the map and only reads the one-sentence description, might misunderstand the colors and think that there are mainly Republican votes in the United States.

This map is titled “College Degrees by County,” from the maproomblog.com, and demonstrates the education level in every area of the United States in 2009. I found this interesting because the dark blue indicates the ‘educated elite,’ and not surprisingly, the areas with this color are most visible in the Los Angeles area in California, and in the Far East with areas such as New York, New Jersey, etc, where the best Universities and largest corporations are located. Another detail that catches the eye immediately is the amount of red there is distributed through out the country. Red indicates ‘well below average,’ and in states such as Texas, North Dakota, and Tennessee, red even dominates the entire state. As a Unites States’ citizen, this is shocking, especially when comparing these statistics to statistics in other countries such as Japan or China

This map is titled “Juvenile suicide rates varied considerably across states,” compiled by CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics, in the website ncjrs.gov. It shows the annual suicides per 1 million juveniles from the age of 7-17. The dark blue demonstrates 46-69 suicides, and the white represents 15-25. I found this especially interesting because once again, there is an obvious area, the West-Mid states, where there is only dark blue, meaning high suicide rates. This makes me wonder what is different from California, and the other states, that accounts for high numbers of suicide rates. Not only is California about 1/7 white states, but it is also the only white state in the entire West Coast. Another detail I am also taking into consideration after analyzing the first map I posted, is the population numbers in the inner states. This works oppositely in this case because even though there is a lower population in these states, there are higher juvenile suicide rates, making the statistics even more dramatic.