Strange Maps: Cotton to presidents

[bitmonger]

I've been interested in visualizations more lately. Strange maps has all sort of interesting conceptual maps and visualizations on it. The first one I ran into was this 50 state GDP map. Each state is replaced with a nation of the same approximate GDP. This map caught my eye today. It shows cotton production in 1860 vs 2008 election district

Comments

[cuddlebunni3]

That cotton/voting one is very interesting indeed... not surprising but very intersting. Working on a way to force that into my classes. Unfortunately all I have is the family chapter left in my intro classes but I'm gonna make it fit if it kills me cause it's just cool.

Neat :)

[bitmonger]

I agree it is very interesting and not at all surprising.

I find the quality of the fit of is stunning. It is compelling in a way that is hard to put into words. Its very clear picture considering how much time has passed and the what is actually measured.

Glad you liked it, too! :)

One more thing....

[bitmonger]

One of the big outliers is in southern TN south of Nashville. I wonder why this spot is such an outlier? Memphis, TN follows the pattern so it is not statewide that TN breaks with the pattern.

I wonder what causes that outlier. Something recent or something a long time ago? Perhaps more white sharecroppers in that region and less slaves? Wikipedia's article on Sharecropping seems to weakly support this theory.

[emboline]

I love the GDP one!

ME thinks I need to read more to fully understand the Cotton one.
Both are super cool!

GDP map

[bitmonger]

Yeah I like the GDP one, too that was the first time I noticed these strangemaps guys. I should see anyone else has done any similar interesting maps. It would be interesting to see some more maps like this one. I wonder what countries have similar urban to rural ratios as each state or countries with a similar numbers of atheists per 100 people.

The cotton production map is from 1860 which is right before the Civil War. So that cotton was produced by massive amounts of slave labor. The post Civil War settlement patterns apparently don't differ that much from where the cotton was grown before the war. That map is overlayed on top of the red/blue 2008 electoral district map.