Nobody lives here: the 5 million US census blocks with zero population

http://mapsbynik.tumblr.com/post/82791188950/nobody-lives-here-the-nearly-5-million-census/

by anigbrowl • 12 years ago

172 94 12 years ago

mapsbynik.tumblr.com

ChuckMcM2• 12 years ago

Drove across Wyoming the other day on the way to Denver and I could definitely appreciate that it was the least populated state in the US (or least densely populated). Lots of open space.

ChrisNorstrom2• 12 years ago

I'm a recluse and I've actually considered one day retiring to a state like Montana, Wyoming, or Idaho. This infographic just made my eyes light up. "Oh my god I can finally get away from everyone" I thought.

grecy3• 12 years ago

Move north.

For this past long weekend I snowshoed into a remote lake and stayed in (and fixed up) a beautiful abandoned cabin. Ice fishing, star and northern light photography, wildlife viewing and beautiful sunshine. Didn't see a single person, and I would have been shocked if I did.

I'm in the Yukon, Alaska is much the same.

Karunamon• 12 years ago

Native wyomingite here - I wouldn't live anywhere else. Cheyenne (state capital) isn't even that densely populated and it's about the busiest city I'd ever want to live in. Here, life seems mostly laid back and relaxing where just a few tens of miles to the south in either Fort Collins or Denver, CO, life feels hectic and claustrophobic.

I'd call this city just about perfect, though - it's still in Wyoming, so there's still separation between people, but it's a quick hop skip and jump to a bigger city for any events in that area.

ternaryoperator• 12 years ago

Well, if you do go the hermit/recluse path, I hope you keep coming up with the elegant products and great designs that you've created in the past [1]

[1] http://www.chrisnorstrom.com/category/creation/

pnathan• 12 years ago

Just so you know, Idaho is a very nice state in many ways. Largely the only real downsides are the lack of jobs and high culture. I've lived there in most of the corners and would be quite happy to discuss the state with you.

Dewie3• 12 years ago

Surely Alaska is the least densely populated state. 1.7 million km2, with a population of around 730,000.

ChuckMcM2• 12 years ago

Yes, apparently Wyoming only "wins" on the lower 48 at 5.9 people per square mile, vs Alaska at 1.3 per sq mile.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_populati...

bmelton2• 12 years ago

To be precise, Alaska is the least _densely_ populated state, but Wyoming is the least populated state.

Wyoming has a population of ~576,000, which is clearly less than Alaska's population of ~731,000 in absolute numbers of population.

However, because Alaska is roughly 6 times larger (586,412 square miles vs 97,814), it wins by quite a bit on lowest density.

ggchappell3• 12 years ago

Wyoming is the least populated state.

As others have noted, Alaska easily wins the least-density contest.

protomyth2• 12 years ago

Drove from ND to Denver through Wyoming and felt very much alone in a lot of places. I thought ND between small towns was empty, but Wyoming was scary empty.

Dewie3• 12 years ago

So what are the average sizes of these census blocks? Assuming an average is at all indicative of anything, I'd guess that it was perhaps around 1 km2 on average (going by number of census blocks). I can imagine that pieces of 1 km2 of land being totally uninhabited would be fairly easy to come across a lot of places.

db48x• 12 years ago

A lot of them are lakes, or just have offices/factories in them.

205guy3• 12 years ago

Came to ask a similar question. I love me some maps and data, but the post just assumes everybody knows what a census block is. More importantly, the shape and distribution of census blocks really affect the interpretation. The uninformed reader might assume census blocks form a regular grid, but since they don't, his or her interpretations will be wrong.

And as the note about the ND-SD border mentions, there are artifacts in the map that arise from the shapes and distributions of the blocks. Whether there might be few or many other such artifacts, the cartographer gives us no information to ascertain.

seanalltogether• 12 years ago

Can anyone explain whats going on with Maine? It doesn't make sense for a coastal state to be so uninhabited.

jsmthrowaway• 12 years ago

The coast is about the only part of Maine that is inhabited. That particular dark green area is largely remote, quite harsh, and has very little infrastructure. North and west of there is the tiny sliver of inhabited Quebec, then go much further beyond and you're in some of the harshest, most remote land in North America.

If you're interested in what the area looks like, check out the Trans-Taiga Road as well as the (less remote) James Bay Road.

Serow225• 12 years ago

The trans-taiga road is very cool!

nine_k• 12 years ago

Protected forests? Harsh weather? Bad publicity from Stephen King's books?

glenstein• 12 years ago

The vast majority of our population is scrunched into the southernmost quarter of the state. I'm not sure but I would guess Maine is the poorest of the New England states. Our economy depends very much on tourism and economic connections to the rest of New England, which means the state "faces" the south, in a sense.

Not a whole lot going on up in the north by comparison. Just forest and many many lakes which alternate between being frozen or mosquito infested depending on the season.

mbell• 12 years ago

I grew up in Maine. The area in green is rather rugged terrain. It's the end of the appalachian mountains with lots of sharp features cut by receding glaciers, then to top it off, it's very dense forest. Topo map (http://www.geomart.com/images/raisedrelief/me.jpg)

Large portions of that area are also owned by paper companies. They obviously use it for harvesting trees but also open it up for public use. That makes it sort of a quasi national park type area except that it's privately owned. There are also a lot of privately owned 'outdoors' cabins up there where hunters/campers go in the summer, and snowmobilers in the winter. Not many people 'live' there, but during some periods of the year there are a fair number of people around, particularly near the larger lakes.

It is a beautiful and relaxing area, I head up there once a year to go camping and 'unplug' from Boston for a week. It is somewhat refreshing to be 80 miles from the nearest paved road and 5 miles of canoe paddling from your vehicle.

stephengillie• 12 years ago

Almost exactly 1/2 of the US population lives east of the Mississippi, which is almost exactly 1/3 of the land mass.

olefoo• 12 years ago

And supposedly half the population that lives West of the Mississippi lives within 30 miles of I-5. Don't have the US Census loaded currently so I can't check it, but that does sound about right.

dredmorbius3• 12 years ago

Given that half the population of the US is 156 million, and half that is 78, it's plausible, but a quick add-up of combined MSAs comes up short:

LA is 18.1 million, San Diego 3.2 Sacramento 2.2, Stockton 0.7, Portland 0.5, and Seattle-Tacoma 3.6. I get about 23.3 million total, which is still 54 million short.

SF-SJ-Oak adds another 8.4 million, but most of it is more than 30 miles from I5.

Checking by state confirms it:

CA: 38m, OR: 3.9m, WA: 6.9m. combined total: 48.8m. Still 30 million short.

Mythbusted.

Windwaker• 12 years ago

Maybe I'm the only one, but is anyone else impressed about the amount of populated areas in the country? It makes me wonder how long we have until we start shoving each other into the oceans.

eliben• 12 years ago

Given that population growth in the developed world is decelerating, and in many countries has already reversed, this is likely to take very long....

cortesoft• 12 years ago

A long time. Even the populated areas could be a lot more dense, and we wouldn't have people pushing each other into the oceans.

Hong Kong has a density of 6,620 people per square km. If the US was that dense, we could fit the entire population (317 million) in about 48,000 square km (the US has close to 10 million square km)

Of course, we probably couldn't have that many people living in that dense an area. But we do have a long way to go before we are pushing each other into the ocean.

adventured• 12 years ago

Just for reference purposes:

http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_popula...

culturestate• 12 years ago

Hong Kong's population density is actually even more impressive than that when you consider that large swaths of the land are either mountains or protected areas that developers are unable to build on. Many areas in the city are an order or magnitude or more higher - Mong Kok, for instance, has a population density up around 130,000 people per km/sq.

zhemao• 12 years ago

The chart only shows presence or absence of human settlement. Just because there are people there doesn't mean there are a lot of people there. Outside of big urban areas like SF, LA, NYC, and Chicago, the US isn't a particularly crowded place. I was born in Shanghai, China and went back to visit family about 4 years ago. I also lived in Manhattan for 3.5 years. Times Square cannot even compare to the absolute crush of humanity at Shanghai's Nanjing Street. Believe me, the US won't be filling up anytime soon.

Touche• 12 years ago

Just have to point out that the population density is hard thing to talk about in the U.S. because the reality is that NYC is far more dense that any other city. We talk about a few cities as though they are equals when in reality it's NYC and then a giant dropoff to everyone else.

Also there's a perception of a few places as being the "big cities" even though population has changed a lot over the years. Perception hasn't changed. So even though SF is definitely dense, there are other places that are equally dense, like Miami, Philadelphia, and Louisville that people don't really think of that way. And then there are emerging big cities (but not necessarily dense) like San Antonio that people perceive as being small.

seanmcdirmid• 12 years ago

Western china is also sparsely populated. Heck, much of even eastern f china is mountainous and not suited to dense population. That there are people at all in these mountain villages is quite amazing. Anyways, the us and china are quite similar in the whole. Just china has many more people.

refurb2• 12 years ago

Really? I have the opposite viewpoint. It's amazing how much of the US has zero people living in it.

Remember, if the census block has is filled in, it could only have 1 or 2 people living in it (i.e. a farm).

We have so much dam space in the US it's mind blowing.

GFK_of_xmaspast• 12 years ago

A lot of the space is not really suitable for dense inhabitation, tho. (or any at all for a smaller subset)

jonnathanson• 12 years ago

We'll fight each other over fresh water supplies long before we're shoving each other into the sea.

The looming water crisis is a particularly big problem in California, Arizona, and parts of the Southwest. Interestingly, farmland irrigation accounts for a bigger drain on water than almost all of the nearby cities combined.

tomerico• 12 years ago

You can 'create' more water by desalination. The real problem is in energy.

ggchappell3• 12 years ago

This is fascinating.

Some of the big green areas are obvious: the Everglades, the forests of Maine, the awful stuff we call "Nevada".

But what about the green blob on the Georgia-Florida border? And what's up with south Texas?

Also, if you didn't catch the link, a fixed map: http://mapsbynik.com/maps/census0pop/census0pop-mapsbynik-re...

nkoren2• 12 years ago

But what about the green blob on the Georgia-Florida border?

I was curious about that too. Apparently it's a very large swamp: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Okefenokee_Swamp

And what's up with south Texas?

Have you been to south Texas?

ggchappell3• 12 years ago

Have you been to south Texas?

Nope. And it appears that those who do go there, don't stay.

b_emery• 12 years ago

In the summer it's so hot your underwear hurts [1]

1) http://prairiehome.publicradio.org/programs/2013/04/20/scrip...

mkr-hn• 12 years ago

But what about the green blob on the Georgia-Florida border?

Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge

mpyne• 12 years ago

Pretty sure the big green blob is swamp/wetlands. The name Okefenokee rings a bell, but I might be confusing that with a different Florida swamp.

doublerebel• 12 years ago

Might be too late to chime in but not enough people know this:

Much of south Texas is shanty towns and illegal settlements, because immigration won't check documents until you are about 100 miles from the border. These people are largely ignored by the US population and not counted in census.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonia_(United_States)#Publi...

nkoren2• 12 years ago

North Dakota is the only clearly discernible state boundary. Anybody know why that is? Does something about the legal regime of North Dakota really change the settlement patterns that much? Or is it some kind of artefact of the way that ND census block are formed, compared to the surrounding states?

abentspoon• 12 years ago

Update: On a more detailed examination of those two states, I’m convinced the contrast here is due to differences in the sizes of the blocks. North Dakota’s blocks are more consistently small (StDev of 3.3) while South Dakota’s are more varied (StDev of 9.28). West of the Missouri River, South Dakota’s blocks are substantially larger than those in ND, so a single inhabitant can appear to take up more spaaaaaace. Between the states, this provides a good lesson in how changing the size and shape of a geographic unit can alter perceptions of the landscape.

mitchty• 12 years ago

Yep, I grew up in ND, and my nearest non family neighbor was 7 miles away. This was pretty common. So if you parcel things up smaller than say 5 miles you'll miss people there pretty easily.

tlrobinson• 12 years ago

I assume the census data doesn't have enough information to divide it up into equal size areas?

ientropic• 12 years ago

It's pretty clear on the west coast of NoDak. *edit: After looking at it for a tish longer, I can see all three borders quite clearly. Being a North Dakota native may help.

dredmorbius3• 12 years ago

I actually manage to work out the TX panhandle and west Texas, particularly the border with New Mexico. A few others show up if you look closely.

tomkinstinch• 12 years ago

Related to this is a PDF from the USGS showing the average distance to the nearest road:

https://www.fort.usgs.gov/sites/default/files/products/publi...

refurb2• 12 years ago

Thanks for posting that link, very interesting!

Two comments:

1. I lean towards the idea that the government wastes a lot of money on stupid things. This however, is pretty dam neat.

2. I'm surprised that most of the US (60%?) is purple/blue which would suggest most of the land in the US has a road within 0.2 to 0.5 km? That's really surprising. I guess if you threw in logging roads and any type of path that could support vehicle traffic it makes sense.

dmm• 12 years ago

It's worth taking a look at the federal budget in detail sometime. Politicians love to argue and make a big deal about relatively small outlays, in comparison Social security + medicare/medicaid = 48% of spending, with military you have 66%. Non-military discretionary is only 17% which includes all of the department of the interior, including the USGS.

ubernostrum• 12 years ago

Obviously the coasts have a lot more population centers, which affects the average distance.

But sometime swing over to Google Maps and start zooming in on a state in the center of the country, but stay away from the larger cities. You'll find a lot of places with pretty regular grids of roads, just spaced out more than they would be in a city (about a mile apart is pretty common). And if you think about what that land is used for, you'll probably be able to work out why they're there :)

205guy3• 12 years ago

And related to roads is the concept of McSparseness, and be sure to follow the update links for a fun adventure:

http://www.datapointed.net/2009/09/distance-to-nearest-mcdon...

ToastyMallows• 12 years ago

For that link all I get is "The specified URL cannot be found." Mirror?

kimonos• 12 years ago

I hope our country is like that..

dfc4• 12 years ago

What happens around 98º W? From ND to TX the character of the map changes around 98º W.

Sanddancer• 12 years ago

The land gets a lot more rugged. About 98W is where you start transitioning from rolling plains to mountains, deserts and other features that are pretty incompatible with starting up any sort of permanent settlement.

AnimalMuppet3• 12 years ago

In addition to what sanddancer said:

You get west of the western edge of the Gulf of Mexico. So yo don't get moisture coming north off of the Gulf. So the land not only gets more rugged, it gets drier. So you get less farming and more ranching.

Yardlink2• 12 years ago

For the purpose of assessing how densely populated places are, this map is extremely misleading. A rural area with one farmer in each block will look just the same as a city, and both will look more populated than part of a busy highway or waterway with no permanent residents. It's mixing up information about the discretization with information about the population. It reminds me of those global statistics maps that always show Alaska as having the highest GDP in the world, or most of your website visitors, or whatever just because it's lumped in with the rest of the USA.

This 3D population density map is pretty nice although it seems to have larger blocks. http://undertheraedar.blogspot.com/2011/07/united-states-cen...

peeters• 12 years ago

Is anybody suggesting this should be used for assessing population density? You seem to be attacking a straw man.

The accompanying text states:

The map tends to highlight two types of areas: places where human habitation is physically restrictive or impossible, and places where human habitation is prohibited by social or legal convention.

And the creator states his purpose (emphasis mine):

Ultimately, I made this map to show a different side of the United States. Human geographers spend so much time thinking about where people are. I thought I might bring some new insight by showing where they are not, adding contrast and context to the typical displays of the country’s population geography.

I for one found it very interesting to see the vast expanses of the U.S. that record no permanent residences. Of particular interest to me is the administrative effort that must go into maintaining almost five million census blocks that have no citizens to report!

205guy3• 12 years ago

Nothing in the post talks about population densities. All it talks about are census blocks with zero inhabitants. As such, the map seemed clear and clearly labeled to me.

loourr• 12 years ago

And if you shrink the size of the census block even further you'll find that an amazing 90+% of land isn't actually being occupied!

Yardlink2• 12 years ago

If you shrink it even further still you'll find 100% isn't being occupied! That's assuming each person occupies only a point, or pretty close to. That's why this map is so misleading even if it is fascinating. The size of the blocks has a huge effect on the result.

aw3c2• 12 years ago

But isn't the resulting image kind of inversely misleading? Ie showing less unoccupied space than existing? Most of the occupied blocks are only occupied in fractions, as you both say.

discohead• 12 years ago

Idaho has over 9 million acres of inventoried roadless areas. The largest of which is the Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness, which together with adjacent wilderness and forest service land constitutes the largest roadless area in the lower 48 at 3.3 million acres. If you love the great outdoors, I can't recommend this area enough. It is a real treasure.

micro_cam• 12 years ago

And of course it is only separated from the 1.3 million acre selway bitteroot wilderness area by the magruder road, a 101 mile dirt road built originally to aid in response to large wild fires. I live on the other side of it from Idaho near Missoula, MT. There is a surprisingly good startup scene here.

joseakle• 12 years ago

On a side note: Is there any reason they ommited the Baja Peninsula? it's a big part of Mexico ...

shmerl• 12 years ago

That's rather evenly distributed. Take Russia for example. There such blocks would be huge and solid.

blacktulip• 12 years ago

I wonder how this map looks like for Canada and Russia

clmorg01• 12 years ago

I wonder what an overlay of Federal Gov. owned land would add to the map.

Nobody lives here: the 5 million US census blocks with zero population

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