Lab 8 Census 2000

The first map represents the Black population by county in the continental US. Black percent population is represented by the different shades of teal. As shown in the accompanying legend, the lightest shade of teal represents a population percentage of less than 3% and the darkest shade of teal represents a population percentage greater than 60%. From the shades of teal throughout the US, it can be observed that there is a relatively high Black percent population in the south/southeastern counties. (The counties with no color had data that were null).

This second map is a representation of the Asian population by county. The darkest shade of grey represents population percents of above 20 and the lightest shade represents population percents of below 0.5. Geographically, specific regions such as the Bay Area, Los Angeles and New York City observe relatively high percent population (around 10-20%) of Asians. In contrast, almost everywhere else in the US (between the East and West coasts) observes low percent populations (less than 5%). It can be seen that in comparison to the Black population, the Asian population spans fewer counties.

This third map is a percent population representation of “some other race alone” for the continental US. The lightest shade of green represents a population percentage of less than 1%, where the darkest shade of green represents a percentage of 22% and above. The term “some other race alone” points to races other than: White, Black, Asian, Native American and Pacific Islander. The main contributing race to this is most likely the Hispanics/Latinos. This assumption agrees with the observation that the counties along the US-Mexico border (Southern California, Arizona, Texas) show higher population percentages (10 – 22+ %) than everywhere else in the US (showing single digit percentages for the most part).

By comparing and contrasting the percent populations for each of the races, many pieces of information can be retrieved but many difficulties can also arise. Different races are concentrated in different parts of the country, and simultaneously give rise to various explanations as to why/how. The Black population is concentrated in the Southern states, most likely due to the historical presence of slavery in the south. A relatively high percentage of Asians are seen in the Bay Area, likely due to the Silicon Valley technology. The “some other race alone” percentage is high along the US/Mexico border, most likely due to the possibility that the race category mainly consists of Hispanics/Latinos from Mexico. One difficulty was defining interval definitions for the various races, when each race had different percentage distributions. Through this census lab, number/population data was combined with spatial data to visually provide an easy-to-understand distribution of the various races throughout the US.

GIS (Geographic Information Systems) aids and encourages spatial thinking, connecting data to space. Initially, ArcGIS was an intimidating software but eventually, I was able to experiment more and more with its limitless tools and ability to manipulate and represent data. GIS is also a communication tool, as the mapmaker must always keep in mind the target audience and its needs. As internet technology further enables people to be connected, the instant sharing of spatial information introduces more possibilities of GIS. GIS overall made me more comfortable with extracting information from maps and spatial data in general.