Lab 7: Working With US Census Data

This map shows the Black population percentage per county across the continental US. Through the spatial distribution, the highest percents are concentrated in the southeast of the United States and percents gradually decreases northwest. I think this distribution is mainly because of the history of slavery. At that time, there was a very large number of Black people in south America working for a very small percentage of White people. Although this history was over, many black people have already rooted in this area. Also, I think few people of other races will move to this area, so it's not hard to explain why black people are the majority of south America.

This map shows the Asian population percentage per county across the continental US. Through the spatial distribution, the highest percents mostly occur at the west coast which is quite different from the first map. Unlike the forced immigration of Black people, Asian people immigrated to America for more opportunities and a better environment. So living in cities in the west coast such as Los Angeles or San Francisco seems to be a beneficial option. In fact, consider that Asian people started to move to live in America only several decades ago, the high percentages in areas such as California are surprisingly high.

This map shows the population percentage of other races per county across the continental US. Through the spatial distribution, the highest percents are mainly in west and southwest of US. From my perspective, since "other races" refer to races which have small percentages in the total American population, these people might be Hispanics. This is reasonable because these states border Mexico or near the border of Mexico.


First of all, I have to admit that it's not so easy for me to analyze the distribution of population of different races since I am a foreigner who almost knows nothing about American geography and history. However, I find GIS can really help me to analyze the distributions because it gives me directly perceived feeling. When setting darker color to describe higher population density and setting lighter colors for lower density, the overall density is clearly showed on the map which is a totally different representative of the original data. Of course we can get the information from the original data, but I think it's easier for us to perceive and make comparisons of the data when it is showed on the map. Nevertheless, GIS also has its own limitations. In the original data in the charts, we can get precise records of the percentages, but we can only see ranges of the percentages on the map. What's more, one map cannot show multiple aspects in the chart such as the name of the county or the population of the county, which can be inconvenient sometimes. All in all, GIS can help us better analyze the statistics, but when we use it, it will be better to combine it with original data which covers more aspects and is more accurate.

Through this class, I learned what GIS is and how to use it for the first time in my life. I have to say that my overall impression of GIS is quite good. Although it is not always easy to make beautiful maps with no mistakes, and some times I need to spend a lot of extra time in the lab, but I will always feel happy when my maps are finished. It is also quite interesting to represent things in multiple ways: the world map can have different shapes using different map projections; the population density can be shown on the map by different colors, and I have to say that the 3-D image of a location is super cool! I believe that GIS will have a really bright future, and I'm really happy with my experience of being a map maker.