Map of us states by population density software#

That’s to avoid placing lots of dots in, say, the middle of a forest, and to account for dense population in cities. Then, rather than distributing the dots evenly around a county, he distributes them proportionally according to where people actually live, based on the US government's National Land Cover Database. On this particular map from 2016, there are roughly 135 million dots. Instead of filling an entire state or county with the color red or blue to indicate which party won, Field uses red and blue dots to represent every vote that was cast. The term “dasymetric” refers to a map that accounts for population density in a given area. To Field, there's no such thing as a totally comprehensive map, but he says, 'Some are more truthful than others.' The so-called dasymetric dot density map is one of them. Presidential election 2016: dasymetric dot density Ken Field (Well, that and he just really loves maps.) That's one reason why Field recently published an extensive gallery of more than 30 alternative maps designed to tell markedly different stories about what happened on election night 2016. But focusing on that map alone could lead Republicans to overestimate their advantage, and lead Democrats to misunderstand the best ways to catch up. It stands to reason that President Trump would want that particular map hung in the West Wing. 'It’s a question of the level of detail that people are interested in understanding.'

'People see maps of any type, and particularly election maps, as the result, the outcome, but there are so many different types of maps available that can portray results in shades of the truth,' Field says. The problem is believing that any single map can ever tell the whole story. The problem, he says, isn't with people's partisan interpretation of the map.

Map of us states by population density software#

A self-proclaimed 'cartonerd,' Field is a product engineer at the mapping software company Esri and author of a guidebook for mapmakers called Cartography. In reality, both sides are right, says Ken Field.