A NEW INTERACTIVE MAP created by demographic researchers at U.Va. displays more than 308 million points—one for each person residing in the United States.
Already used by hundreds of thousands of people nationwide, the online map provides an innovative visual of the geographic distribution, population density and racial diversity of every neighborhood in the country. The only one of its kind to apply racial and ethnic data from the 2010 U.S. Census, the map allows users to zoom from the national level—at which many points overlap to reflect density—down to the neighborhood level, where individual points are visible.
“I created the map mostly out of curiosity after seeing the original Census Dotmap developed by [mapmaker and software engineer] Brandon Martin-Anderson,” said Dustin Cable, then senior research associate at the Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service’s Demographics & Workforce Group and Batten graduate (MPP ’10). “Starting with that idea, I added racial data from the Census Bureau.” Cable then plotted the points, made the images and hosted the system through Google Maps. The entire code base is open for people to see and use as they wish on the code-sharing platform GitHub.
Cable’s work highlights the population density and racial diversity of every neighborhood in America
Available to anyone with an interest, the map promises to be a powerful resource for teachers and students, and will be useful in transportation and school planning, housing construction and government functions. Researchers also expect private-sector employers will use the information to understand more about their customers and markets.
RELATED CONTENT
MORE STUDENT / ALUMNI NEWS