Cartography Lab 1 - Census 2000

For this project I joined county-level race data from the 2000 Census and used it to create maps showing the population density of various races across the continental United States. I made three individual maps displaying Asian, White and Black race categories. I used the Lambert conic projection for all of my maps. I also chose to classify the race data by using natural breaks to model the data. I feel that using natural breaks instead of a preselected range of percentages yields a more accurate representation of the data that I am displaying.

When looking at the map of black race data it shows that in the year 2000 a higher percentage of blacks lived in counties found in the Southeastern states such as Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina and Virginia. Also near Chicago, Illinois there is a relatively large black population. Conversely the map of whites shows low population densities in these areas with high black populations. The maps look to be almost opposites of eachother. The map of Asian race census data shows that the highest population densities of Asians are found on the West Coast, especially around the San Francisco Bay Area. A guess to why this is could be that since the West Coast of the United States is closer to Asia, it would make sense that when Asians immigrated to the US that they would choose to live in the place that required the least amount of travel.