Black

Looking at the map above, it is clearly shown that the counties in the South (and some of the East coast) retain a large African American population. The population density is not present in these maps; however, one would predict that the South and the East Coast hold the greatest percentage of African Americans in the United States. Many of the southern counties are even majority African American. Interestingly, the Midwest counties hold almost all 0.01%-5.43% of African Americans in their population. There are several counties that even hold no African Americans in their population. 

Asian

Unlike the Black percent population, the Asian minorities are located on the West Coast, mainly in California. Since Asia is closer to California, it makes sense why there are more Asians in these western counties. Again, there are some counties (especially in the Midwest that retain almost a zero percent of Asians in their population. Here, the largest percent interval of Asians in the counties is only approximately 20.45% - 46.04%. This may suggest that Asians are an even smaller minority than African Americans. 

Some Other Race

Clearly, California is most likely one of the most diverse states in the United States. Interestingly, the South and the East Coast do not hold a lot of other races, other than African Americans, like we saw previously on the first map. The United States borders along Mexico, hold the largest percent of other races, and from the borders the percent of race continues to grow. My guess would be that many of these other races here are Mexicans.

Census Map Series

Even though the sample census took me about four hours to go through, it was an interesting task. Once I learned the steps for these census maps, the process of making the maps above went smoothly. Looking at these maps, it has made me realize that different races tend to reside in certain areas of the United States. This leads to further questions about the race. Such as, what is the population density in that smaller county that has a population with over 50% of African Americans; exactly how did these races originate in the United States, considering many Asians are on the West Coast and many African Americans are in the South; since California seems to have a larger variety and diversity of different races, does that make them less racist? ??? The maps tell us many interesting things and they also make us want answers from new questions that are raised.

Overall Impressions of GIS

I found a lot of things about GIS very interesting, especially the overall concept. I never realized how much work, detail, and creativity goes into making maps. I also didn’t realize how much information a single map could tell us. Maps can just be a simple mental map in our head showing a friend how to get to class or can tell a backpacker the elevation in the forest or they can provide information on the spread of a fire and how it related to different aspects or how it can tell you the communities at risk. Using arcMap also made me realize how complicated the making of maps can be and it made me understand the amount of intricate work that goes into making maps. The long labs we overcame are probably simple tasks for a proficient arcGIS user; whereas for us (or at least for me) it was very time consuming and sometimes a pain because there was one simple step I didn’t know how to do. However, once I got the hang of it, I did enjoy using the program.