The map above takes an
interesting look at ancestry in the U.S.
It is a choropleth map of every county in the country, showing the most
people who claimed a common ancestry.
But just because a map is interesting doesn’t mean it is faultless. For instance, the title “Largest Ancestry:
2000” doesn’t specify the region the map is representing. The cartographer should have included the
country we are seeing and the dimension of the borders, going something like
this: “Largest Ancestry in the U.S. by County: 2000”. Also, the title can easily be confused for
the legend title because there are two other maps in the banner, making it seem
like it is describing those instead of the main one.
Otherwise, the cartographer did a great job communicating
the data with text. There is a suitable
legend with a high amount of detail; subtitles are included by map type (state
vs. county); and source information is written in two locations. State names and major cities could have been
added to help readers less familiar with U.S. geography. The font size is good, though it appears small
and crammed in places because there is so much information in the legend. I would have removed the “other” categories
since we see them only once on the map and it would help reduce clutter.
Data
on the map comes from the U.S. census, where ancestry claims were quantitively calculated
by county. What we see on the map is the
greatest number of people in each county claiming a common ancestry (Jerreat,
2013). Just to be clear, the choropleth
only reflects the primary ancestry of the population of each county; ancestry
that ranked second, third, and fourth had nothing to do with what is shown on
the map.
While
data from the U.S. Census is highly reliable, there a couple issues at
hand. This article was published by the
Daily Mail U.K., which has a low credibility rating according to Media
Bias/Fact Check (2016). This by itself
doesn’t render the data inaccurate, but it is more likely to make the reader
question what they are seeing. Secondly,
since the data is taken from the 2000 census, it poses a problem because there
have been two others since then (2010, 2020); and after 2000, the census did
not poll for ethnicity. Since the map
cannot be updated to reflect the current census, some counties are likely
showing the wrong color in today’s world.
The third and biggest problem is that both links for the data source on
the map are broken. Readers cannot trace
data to broken links; they are left having to look up the information
themselves, and wondering if it is the same as the cartographer’s. The article was written in 2013 and either
needs to be removed, updated after a new survey, or rewritten from an
historical perspective.
A flaw in the map that may lead to an ecological fallacy
is that it doesn’t show other high ranked ancestries in each county, which
often may have several that are close to being the primary one. For instance, in King County, WA, German was
the top reported ethnicity at 292,504 (U.S. Census), but there were three
others with over 100,000: English (209,263), Irish (192,778), and Norwegian
(105,042). The map gives the illusion
that counties like these are dominated by one ancestry when only about 15% of
the population is being represented. To
fix the problem, I would take the data a step further and include the percentage
of the highest ancestry on each color spectrum.
If one county has a dominant ethnicity (over 50%), the represented color
will be much darker than one where the leading figure is only 15%. This would help to reduce the impression that
Germans appear to be the leading ancestry by a wide margin in our country.
The map is so versatile with color that few would notice
any patterns in the cartographer’s choice of using them. However, a closer look reveals something that
is almost scandalous: the colors that stand out the most represent the most discriminated
racial groups in our country. Perhaps
coincidentally, African Americans own the darkest color on the choropleth, a
loud purple. Mexican and Native
Americans are pink and orange respectively, which isn’t so suggestive. But most of the colors representing white or
European ancestry are in the range of blue to green to light purple, falling in
line with the light blue of neighboring countries on the map, which allows them
to blend in more than the others. To be more
conscious of race, I would have altered the color scheme to look more random when
making a map like this.
The main message of the map is that America’s reputation of
being a melting pot holds firm geographically, but there are many other
possible conclusions to be drawn. Though
German appears to dominate the map, most of the counties where it is leading are
rural areas with low population levels. Complementary
data that would help illustrate this point is population density. One can also surmise that Germans were more
likely to continue migrating west after they entered the country, along with
the Dutch, Irish, and Norwegian immigrants. Southern European immigrants, including the
French and Italians, appear to have been more likely to stay in their
regions. Urban areas on the map tend to
have surprises that add a unique flavor of ethnicity to the map, such as Miami
(Cuban) and San Francisco (Chinese). Complementary
data that would help to analyze this might involve migration patterns; are
certain ethnicities represented more because they migrate more? Finally, it is fascinating how there is a
belt of people in the south who identify as American but not anywhere else in
the country. Perhaps these areas have
people who feel more patriotic since they don’t identify as much with their
ancestor culture.
All these messages make the map a fun one to digest. Anyone in the U.S. who knows where their
county is can look it up and ponder how accurate it is. In my county it says German is the leader, which
may have changed in the last 20 years as there are more Asian and Indian
Americans now. Not only would
complementary data showing migration patterns demonstrate how populations on
the map developed historically, but it would predict their trajectory for the
future as well. That way the result for
counties like mine would make more sense.
Sources:
Jerreat, Jessica. (2013, September 1). The Map That Shows Where America Came
From. Daily Mail U.K. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2408591/American-ethnicity-map-shows-melting-pot-ethnicities-make-USA-today.html
Media Bias/Fact
Check. (2016, July 9). Daily Mail- Bias and Credibility. https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/daily-mail/
U.S. Census. (2010). King County. https://ofm.wa.gov/sites/default/files/public/legacy/pop/census2000/dp58/co/033.pdf
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