Trivia Wednesday

I didn't have a chance to post this yesterday, so instead of Trivia Tuesday, we're going to have Trivia Wednesday this week. Your challenge is to answer the questions below based on the maps.

1. This is a detail from a map showing the service area of what fictional New York organization?

2. This map shows the numbers of times each nation has done what?

3. Name the island shown in this edited Google Map image from March 2017.

4. Identify the event represented by this cartogram.

5. This map, updated in January 2017, shows the numbers of what in each state?

6. Whose name has been redacted from this map?

7. This is the main floor of what establishment?

8. This map (created for the Risk-like game Lux Delux) imagines a battle over what campus?

Please leave your answers in the comments section below. Good luck!

These questions are courtesy of the Just Images Maps mini-league of LearnedLeague.

Oh The Places I've Been

Last month, it seemed like everyone posted a United States map on Facebook showing the states they visited. Since I'm always up on current trends, I'm happy to share my map only 4-6 weeks late.

41 states plus the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico (not pictured) isn't bad. Plus, with the exception of Alabama, Tennessee, Kentucky and Iowa, I've actually spent time in all of these states rather than just driving through. With that written, if missing the exit for the Cincinnati Bengals and Reds stadiums and driving into Kentucky multiple times counts as spending time in Kentucky, then remove the Bluegrass State from the list of exceptions.

Meanwhile, twice during my 1997 road trip, I drove on Interstate 44 and entered Oklahoma from Missouri yet somehow missed Arkansas and especially Kansas.

As for the remaining states, I still have no idea how I've never been to Maine, New Hampshire & Vermont. That's a trip that needs to happen sometime soon. I'll visit North Dakota during a future hockey road trip to Winnipeg to see a University of North Dakota game. I have no idea when I'll hit Idaho, Kansas, Arkansas, Montana and particularly Hawaii.

I really want to travel now!

Thanks to Maploco for the map and thanks to Ngewo for doing this first.

Interview with Joshua Comenetz, the Creator of the U.S. Jewish Population by Congressional District Map

Back in December, I shared the fascinating map of the U.S. Jewish population by the 113th Congressional districts. I was so intrigued by this project that I contacted the individual who created the map, Joshua Comenetz, and he was nice enough to answer some questions. If you like maps, geography, population mapping or even the University of Florida Gators, I think you'll enjoy this interview.

First, what is your background and how did you get involved with creating U.S. Jewish Population by Congressional District map?

As a consultant, I do population mapping and demographic studies of both U.S. and foreign areas. I've been doing religious population mapping, mainly Jewish, for nearly 20 years. The congressional district map is a companion to the National Map, a county-level Jewish population map completed in 2012 and also available on the Berman Data Bank website. Both were Berman Summer Research Fellowship projects--fellowships sponsored by the Data Bank.

How does one get to be a population mapping consultant?

I started doing consulting work as a way to have more hands-on work, especially when I was a professor. First I did some redistricting work, but more recently it's mostly been Jewish population. I'm not aware of anyone else who does Jewish population mapping.

How long did it take you to compile the data and create the [U.S. Jewish Population by Congressional District] map?

The project was completed during 2013, as a part-time research project. A revised version of the maps (I received better data for the districts in the NYC area) was just posted online.



Did anything surprise you about the results?

Not that much because I'd already done the county map. It's interesting that the data show at least a few Jews in every district, and how clustered the Jewish population is in some states. The county map shows no Jews in a large fraction of counties, partly because information about Jews in rural areas is sparse.

I was surprised by the amount of Jews that live in the eastern Arizona Congressional district. While I definitely don't want to dispute your results, um, was this correct?

There are definitely inaccuracies in the maps, mainly because of the limitations of the source data. These include out-of-date demographic studies in fast-changing areas, and lack of good data in many rural/small town areas. However, the southeast Arizona district is probably approximately accurate. The Tucson area is split between two districts, including that one. Tucson's Jewish population was estimated at 22,000 in 2002, and a 2006 update of that study found little change. The Jewish institutions in Tucson (according to Google Maps) are clustered in the eastern part of the area, i.e., in the congressional district you mention, and the Census Bureau ancestry/language data also suggest more Jews living in that part of the area. That led me to assign more of the Tucson area Jewish population to the eastern district.

My parents both grew up in small towns, but each of these areas had at least one synagogue. There's not much of a Jewish population in either town today. The reason I mention this is because I'm wondering if there is any comparative data in Jewish population from previous years (with the understanding that Congressional districts change)? If so, are there significant differences between now and 30 or 40 years ago?

As you say, congressional districts change, so it would be hard to compare those numbers over more than a decade. However, county or city data in the American Jewish Year Book goes back to the 1890s for some areas, and you can see long-term patterns of growth and decline.

While you may not be in the prognostication business, where do you see in this map in 20 or 30 years? Any trends you foresee?

In general, Jews move around more than the American average, related to educational and work opportunities and retirement. In growing places, the Jewish population is often growing even faster than the total population. In slow-growth areas, the Jewish population often grows more slowly than the total population, or declines. It seems likely that Jewish population growth will continue in southern and southwestern states, while there will be little change or even decline in much of the midwest. Some northeastern cities will not see growth, but others such as Washington/Baltimore, New York, and Boston will keep growing because of job opportunities and rapid increase in Orthodox communities. Orthodox increase is the key Jewish growth trend of the 21st century.

Finally, I saw that you worked as a Geography Professor at the University of Florida. Are you a fan of the Gators football team, and if so, will they be better in 2014?

I have not followed football, but I was in Florida when UF won the football and basketball championships in the same year. (Sean's note: Essentially, Joshua Comenetz is responsible for the success of the Gators football and basketball teams too! The teams haven't been as good since he left.)

Thanks again to Joshua for taking the time to answer my questions. For more information about the Jewish Maps of the United States by Congressional District, check out the Berman Jewish Databank. You can also check out Joshua's 2012 Jewish map of the United States by county and his website PopulationMapping.com.

Where The Jews At

I love maps. I also love seeing maps with various colors representing, well, anything. In this case, Joshua Comenetz created this map of the U.S. Jewish population by the 113th Congressional districts.



This is fascinating. Here are some notes on the project:

- The estimate of the Jewish population in all Congressional Districts is 6,735,830, approximately 2.18% of the total U.S. population.

- Not surprisingly, there are more Jews in New York City and the greater NYC area than anywhere else. Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago, Atlanta, Los Angeles, Miami, Baltimore, Washington, and San Francisco/San Jose also have Congressional districts with at least 50,000 Jews.

- Conversely, there are virtually no Jews anywhere in North Dakota or South Dakota. The least Jewish district is Oklahoma's 2nd district with 0.004% of the population or 30 people. That's less than the number of people in the Pittsburgh Pirates dugout during a regular season game!

- There are over 10,000 Jews in the southeastern Arizona Congressional district? Even if Tucson is part of this district, that number seems high.

- Want more? The Berman Jewish Databank at the Jewish Federations of North America has a summary of the results including multiple downloads. My favorite is the Excel chart showing the estimated Jewish population of every Congressional district. Apparently, the district where I live has 22,000 Jews or 3.02% of the population

- Comenetz's 10-page PDF summary is available here.

- The Yeshiva World News has information too.

NFL Fans Map

Sean Taylor at Facebook took the approximate 35 million users who have "Liked" a National Football League team's fan page, and put it into this awesome map.

Taking this from a Steelers fan perspective, this map is particularly interesting. As expected, Steelers fans dominate Western and Central Pennsylvania, all of West Virginia and significant parts of Ohio. Perhaps not as expected is that the Steelers appear to be the most popular team in Hawaii, large parts of North Carolina and South Carolina, and areas of Alaska, Oregon, Nevada, Idaho, Montana, Utah, Nebraska, New York, Kentucky, North Dakota, Tennessee, Virginia, Alabama and Florida. Since I love maps, I really can look at this map for hours.

Facebook also went a step further. As Barry Petchesky of Deadspin writes, "If you're a fan of one team, who are your friends most likely to be fans of? Here are the top five most common allegiances for Facebook friends of fans of each team. Once again, geography rules—except for the large numbers of Cowboys, Steelers, and Patriots fans on everybody's list."

I hate to admit it, but based on this information, it appears that the Cowboys truly are the most popular team (at least according to people on Facebook) in the United States.

h/t Deadspin


Update: I really can't stop looking at this map. Maybe it's because I am part of the Steelers diaspora, but I am fascinated by teams that have little to no support in places outside of its own vicinity. (I'm looking at you Jacksonville, San Diego, Tampa Bay, and yes, even Baltimore and Philadelphia.)

Steve Miller's Map

In 1976, the Steve Miller Band released the song Rock ‘N’ Me. This #1 hit features the following lyrics:

I went from Phoenix, Arizona
All the way to Tacoma
Philadelphia, Atlanta, L.A.

Northern California
Where the girls are warm
So I could be with my
Sweet baby, yeah

Assuming that Steve Miller’s final destination was San Francisco, California, this total trip is 7,662 miles according to Google Maps (see below).


View Larger Map

However, this doesn’t seem like the best way to get from Phoenix (the starting point) to San Francisco (the finish line) with stops in Tacoma, Philadelphia, Atlanta and Los Angeles. I think the most efficient trip is Phoenix to LA to Atlanta to Philadelphia to Tacoma to San Francisco (6,959 miles).


View Larger Map

Amazingly, going from Phoenix to Atlanta to Philadelphia to Tacoma to LA to San Francisco is only 9 miles more (6,968 miles).


View Larger Map

So is there a better way for Steve Miller to get from Phoenix to Northern California with the multiple stops? Stay tuned for the next post so that we can discuss the warmth of Northern California girls and if their temperature is greater than 98.6 degrees.

Verizon’s Coverage Maps

If you watch any television, you can’t avoid the countless Verizon Wireless advertisements comparing the coverage maps of Verizon and AT&T. For the sake of full disclosure, I’m a Verizon Wireless customer; however, I’m offended by these maps primarily since I didn’t have cell phone service in one of these red areas where I called home up until only a few weeks ago.



AT&T is apparently unhappy about these maps too since they have sued Verizon.



Based on the blue map, does that mean that there are no AT&T wireless stores in Wyoming, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota and nearly all of New Mexico and Nebraska? Does anyone in these states have cell phone service through AT&T? I’m confused.

Election Maps, Steelers and Great Authors

My life the last few days has focused almost entirely on the election and the Steelers’ Monday night game, though not necessarily in that order. I have a few links about both:

I love maps and have spent way too much time looking at the county-by-county results of the Presidential election.

From the map, only one county in the six New England states went to McCain: Piscataquis, Maine.

Conversely, McCain won every Oklahoma county, and Obama only won two counties each in Wyoming and Utah and three counties in Kansas and Nevada. Of course, winning Clark County, home of Las Vegas, was enough for Obama to carry that state.

McCain also won both Mineral counties. That would be Mineral County, Nevada where 49 total people voted and Mineral County, Colorado which had a whopping 64 voters. I spent over 20 minutes trying to verify these numbers from the Mineral County government websites, but I don’t think these counties have actual websites.

According to the Pennsylvania map from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, John McCain won Mercer County with 24,321 votes versus Obama’s 24,319. That’s a difference of only two votes. Amazing! However, the Mercer County government site actually shows that Obama won 24,955-24,792. Did they find an extra thousand people at the Grove City Prime Outlets to vote late Tuesday night?

There are a lot of angry Redskins fans in and around Washington. It’s not the team lost handily to Pittsburgh on Monday night; it’s the fact that there were thousands of Steelers fans in attendance. Personally, I thought there were a larger percentage of Steelers fans at the game I attended in Jacksonville earlier this season (I thought about 25%) than at Monday’s game, but I have seen some people put the percentage of Steelers fans on Monday as high as 30%. Much more about this as well as some fun comments from Washington fans on the DC Sports Bog here, here and here (this one is the Redskins player reactions to the Steelers fans. The offense needed to use a silent count...at home!).

In other Steelers news (sort of), PSAMP and One for the Other Thumb interviewed Amos Zereoue.

Finally, I am always on the lookout for good books to read. While I am enjoying Don’t Know Much About Anything Else by Kenneth C. Davis (I like receiving free books), which has facts and quizzes on a variety of topics, there is not a plot or protagonist. Therefore, I am thinking about reading some books by historic authors. If you could choose one book each by Ernest Hemmingway, Charles Dickens and John Steinbeck, what would you recommend? I remember reading Of Mice and Men by Steinbeck in high school, and I must have read a Dickens book at some point, but I don’t recall which one. Any suggestions of books by these authors or others are appreciated.

Opening Day

In honor of opening day of the 2008 baseball season* here is a cool map courtesy of the amazing website Strange Maps titled the United Countries of Baseball.



* for all teams with the exception of the Boston Red Sox, Oakland A’s, Washington Nationals and Atlanta Braves.