The Astronomy Picture of the Day has an excellent map showing the
population densities in various counties and provinces:
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap030305.html
Does anyone one know where I could find an equivalent map showing per
capta income by county or province?
The last good one I saw, which had a low resolution, being by nation,
was in 1976. (I have also seen low resolution ones more recently in
which nations are shown as squares or rectangles in sizes proportional
to their GDP, which is a poor user interface.)
Actually, since income is measured in various ways, I would like to
see several maps: one for per capta income using current exchange
rates, another other using purchasing power parities, and yet another
showing non-market as well as market sources of income, such as unpaid
income from women's work at home, as well as quality of life as
measured by literacy, and life expectancy. Also, I would like to see
maps showing wealth and wealth inequality rates, as well as income
inequality rates.
The maps should be based on counties or other fairly small geographic
regions, if possible, and while I would accept a color key, like that
in the population map whose URL is shown above, I would really like to
see a map in which the values are used to resize the small geographic
regions of which the map is composed, but still keeping their general
shapes.
In the old days, this sort of size mogrification was difficult (I
suspect that is why the GNP maps I mentioned above used rectangles),
but I am told that nowadays, computer programs exist to make this sort
of shape change easily.
I know that data for all this exists, and much of the data comes in
county, state, or provincal resolution, rather than only at a national
resolution.
Naturally, many measures should use a logarithmic scale, since
absolute figures are often too wide apart. The population map shown
above uses only six colors to cover a population density range
greater than 250.
Also, medians values may be more telling than averages. (There is a
joke making the rounds that illustrates the difference between median
and average: two Republicans are sitting in a diner; one of them is
without a job. In walks Bill Gates. `Hurrah', says the first
Republican, `our average wealth has now risen to over a billion
dollars each!'. `That's great,' say the second Republican;
`meanwhile, could you buy me a coffee?')
--
Robert J. Chassell Rattlesnake Enterprises
http://www.rattlesnake.com GnuPG Key ID: 004B4AC8
http://www.teak.cc [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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