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Nye Bevan

(25,406 posts)
Wed Nov 7, 2012, 07:48 PM Nov 2012

2012 Electoral Map Adjusted for Population

The standard red-blue map is deceptive because there is more red than blue, which makes it look like the Republicans won:



The problem is that the red states are mostly sparsely populated. We can correct for this by making use of a cartogram, a map in which the sizes of states are rescaled according to their population. That is, states are drawn with size proportional not to their acreage but to the number of their inhabitants, states with more people appearing larger than states with fewer, regardless of their actual area on the ground. On such a map, for example, the state of Rhode Island, with its 1.1 million inhabitants, would appear about twice the size of Wyoming, which has half a million, even though Wyoming has 60 times the acreage of Rhode Island:



As you can see, the states have been stretched and squashed, some of them substantially, to give them the appropriate sizes, though it's done in such a way as to preserve the general appearance of the map, so far as that's possible. On this map there is now clearly more blue than red.

See http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mejn/election/2012/

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Response to jberryhill (Reply #1)

freshwest

(53,661 posts)
5. It's still between Idaho and North Dakota, right? We're still safe from the event horizon.
Wed Nov 7, 2012, 08:05 PM
Nov 2012
I think this will be a state matter. Or anti-matter.

Check the latest science fiction and tell us. this is series!

zbdent

(35,392 posts)
6. and what would it look like if you took away all the federally owned land, too?
Wed Nov 7, 2012, 08:18 PM
Nov 2012

Gotta laugh at those people in Arizona who thought they could privatize the Grand Canyon ...

As soon as you have to charge admission, you're gonna have to start selling the prime locations to the wealthy people who want the "cool" house location ...

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