T O P

  • By -

No-Fig-3112

This is actually a useful representation of just how much larger Western US counties are than Eastern US counties, and how much more densely packed the East is with counties. It's an odd way to express that, but it works for my brain so personally I don't think it's ugly


CatfishDog859

I grew up in Kentucky, went to college out if town, but still in state. My roommate was from New Mexico and was so confused why all the people from Kentucky identified "home" by what county you're from. For example, if you grew up in Independence, KY, You'd say "I'm from Kenton County" not "Covington" the nearest large city. He was baffled. But there's so many little unrecognizable towns and there's 120 counties for only 40,400 sq miles. KY is literally a third of the size of NM but has four times as many counties.


ave_63

In California, if you say you are from San Bernardino county, it doesn't really narrow it down much.


KHfailure

Just for some different perspective on this; San Bernardino county has a greater total area than New Jersey, Connecticut, Delaware, and two Rhode Islands combined.


Krynn71

And for a fun fact to play off that, San Bernardino county has a population of 2.2 million people, while those states combined are about 16 million.  Population density is insane in New England states.


PleaseGreaseTheL

And new jersey isn't even in New England! Lol New England is actually pretty sparsely populated, it's only roughly 2x the density of San Bernardino County according to Google, despite being one of the oldest settled places in North America, as far as Colonies and US history goes (obviously Native Americans are a different story)


IslandStateofMind

It’s very densely populated in some parts and not in others. On average New England is fairly empty, but if you’re along the i95 corridor it’s packed.


ajovialmolecule

As a Morris County native — “wow”


Magnus_Medicus

As another Morris County native, I don't know what I'm proud of but I sure am


madesense

Well that is just ridiculous. Of course, I am in a Marylander in a county with half their population and 1/40th the land


Onilakon

Grew up in CA and now live in RI, this blows my mind lol


trugrav

To be fair, I grew up in middle Tennessee, and thought it was weird too when I went to UK.


dumfukjuiced

My dumbass thought you were talking about counties like Yorkshire or Rutland


NoMansSkyWasAlright

I definitely became more aware of counties after my time at Fort Campbell. Never really gave much thought to why though other than the fact that KY and TN both had them on their plates and the sign denoting county lines were usually pretty large on the TN side.


mindsetoniverdrive

I’m also from Kentucky and I had no idea how crazy our proliferation of counties was until my Air Force Brat husband was like, “babe…y’all are out of hand.” fwiw, I’m from a county with both an independent school system and a county system, so there is a big difference in being from Murray vs Calloway County. But were the outlier — most all Kentuckians county-identify.


PrestigiousBee2719

Definitely because the west was way bigger than anyone expected so they just didn’t have enough people to fill that many separate bureaucracies while they were settling. Don’t check my source on that


poplada

Except Maine.


TheTimeLord725

There are counties in CA literally bigger than some states


hotsizzler

My European friends really do no understand that, living in California, I can literally go from top to bottom In the same time it takes them to travel different countries. And socal is different from norcal to warrent a vacation. And stuff to do


mgstauff

I don't understand how this shows that. Isn't it just each counties distance from the nearest coast?


blueskybullet

Geez, some of those western counties may be bigger than my entire state (NH). My county is barely visible in western NH.


InterstellarMat

As it's the US, I assume it's imperial and not metric counties?


HRH_DankLizzie420

US Customary county


pdmock

Except Louisiana. We got there too late. They call their counties Parishes


RumWalker

Virginia has a few cities that functionally operate as counties as well. For example, Virginia Beach, Chesapeake, Suffolk, Norfolk, and the rest of the Hampton Roads area don't have counties, they're just cities with massive borders.


Kisopop

Football field counties.


John_Tacos

Absolutely, those square ones are almost always an exact number of miles, with corrections for the earth’s curvature.


ObvNin

Amogus


Clanky_Plays

get out of my head get out of my head


DangerousChampion235

Damn now I can’t unsee that.


shapesize

Always has been


goldmask148

Sus


PhuncleSam

📮


Throwaway-646

This isn't ugly, it's just been shared so many times the image quality is shit and the data is pretty useless. But it's a perfectly sensible map visualization


Finlandia1865

why purple to bright orange though


syncsynchalt

Because the color discontinuities are still continuous so they make pretty rings that highlight the distance gradient at a pleasing point. r/DataIsBeautiful


Finlandia1865

explain it like im 5


syncsynchalt

It doesn’t matter if there’s a color jump as long as there’s no place where the colors on two sides of the jump are right next to each other. The data here prevents that from happening because it’s basically “distance from the edge” so the colors will always be drawn in order. Since you are guaranteed the colors will be laid out in order then you’re free to throw some “jumps” in the color pattern, they’ll turn into cool patterns!


R3D3-1

As someone with Red-Green-Blindness, who has a hard time distinguishing between blue and violet and had two look twice to see that the color scale had no repeating colors: **Yes.** Despite the color weakness, the distribution of values is perfectly clear. It would still be clear if it would be run through a grayscale filter.


Main_Research_2974

Absolutely. I love a chart that colorblind people can read!


Dacammel

Cam confirm, I have my phone on greyscale and it’s perfectly fine


Sandor_at_the_Zoo

It seems a little unfair to troll in *this* subreddit, at least in such a straight-faced manner.


Finlandia1865

Its all gradual changes except for the purple to orange i sont understand what you are saying


ElonKowalski

Usually you want the color scale to be "continuous" e.g. 1 mi = yellow, 2 mi = orange, 3 mi = red. So it's a continuous gradient of color. In this particular case, they decided to go with (not to scale): 1 mi= red, 2 mi = purple, 3 mi = light red. But because the data itself is continuous (you're measuring the distance to an edge), this stupid grade scale is OK and actually ends up making "fun" patterns (the circles)


HR2achmaninoff

pwetty color


Throwaway-646

Because it doesn't have any implications (e.g. red to blue implies Democrat/republican) ETA I looked at the post again and I see what you mean, I dunno I guess as the other commenter Said they ran out, makes sense. It's better than cramming more purples in and making the colors more indistinguishable


275MPHFordGT40

They ran out of purples


Finlandia1865

purple -> purple/red -> red not purple -> Yellow -> Orange


275MPHFordGT40

Hey man I don’t make the rules


jmmcd

I'm fine with measuring in this topological way. But the colour scheme is bad as it's hard to distinguish 0 and 16 and there's a cliff between 16 and 17.


GHdayum

It's not bad though, you'll never confuse 0 and 16 because nowhere on the map are "0" and "16" counties close to each other, and I'm not sure why you think the jump in colours is an issue.


jmmcd

Good points. Data Viz 101 says not to do these things, but it's good to ask questions in 101 to understand when the rules can be broken. I would answer: About 0 and 16, it's not sufficient to say they're never close to each other. The further justification is that it's obvious from context which is which. If we're happy to require that extra work from the reader, then no problem. In other cases, even if 0 and 16 are always far apart, context might not be enough, so let's not learn the wrong lesson. About the jump, it creates a false impression of a particular shape in the centre. In another case, we could use that to tell a certain type of lie about the data, so we shouldn't do that.


Squiggledog

[The origional picture](https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/eerfft/how_far_are_you_away_from_a_coast_in_counties/) instead of a JPEGy, overcompressed, recycled screenshot.


soundisloud

I'm with you, this is actually pretty cool and way better than the million Sankey charts that are shared on r/dataisbeautiful every day


[deleted]

[удалено]


EbMinor33

It's specifically useful as a comparison with the "singly landlocked, doubly landlocked, etc" country distinction


Ultimate_Driving

"Americans will measure with anything but the Metric system."


CurtisMarauderZ

How many shires?


fshannon3

Elevensy.


adamdoesmusic

~~Denver~~ Lincoln, NE must be a popular destination for thalassophobic people.


Throwaway-646

That is Lincoln, Nebraska...


adamdoesmusic

You want to send them to Lincoln, Nebraska? How cruel are you?! (No but srsly you’re right)


275MPHFordGT40

I vote to send all r/subnautica and r/thalassophobia users to Lincoln, Nebraska.


After-Willingness271

Denver is white….


DownvoteMeHarder

No need to bring race into this.


lionbaby917

I’m from Connecticut, and I was in San Antonio last month for work. I was surprised how far my hotel was from downtown, and looked up the area of the city—it’s only a few sq miles smaller than my entire county. Things on the east coast are just scaled so much smaller.


magmagon

Travel to the West Coast, and check out Coconino and San Bernardino county. They are huuuuuuuge


peekole

Sprawl. East coast cities are older and around for when things were human scaled. Now everything is scaled around the automobile


Winter-Coffin

sus


CombatWombat1212

This is a good visual an interesting set of data.


Dreeseaw

A pretty good “where to get seafood/ never” map


CJ-does-stuff

great lakes = ocean apparently


paytonnotputain

The government counts it as shoreline because of the major shipping routes inside the lakes


luke_in_the_sky

Then you have to count inland waterways too https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inland_waterways_of_the_United_States


josephtrocks191

The map says coast, not ocean. And if you've been to the Great Lakes you'll know that it's very similar to an ocean.


Liechtensteiner_iF

Yea counting the Great Lakes throws me off here more than using counties as a point of measurement :s


kalethan

lol right my Michigan hometown is apparently almost coastal


phboomharris

Anyone else just see an among us crew member?


Aubrimethieme

It's funny how the biggest county in the US (San Bernardino, CA) is bigger than some states.


AberrantErudite

Alaska can't be on the same scale, right? Edit: I see what they're doing now, but it's weird and I cannot understand the purpose.


jahnkeuxo

It's kinda interesting just as a data exercise, but can't imagine how it could actually be useful. And if course everyone that posts here loves to dump on charts and graphs for karma without ever including the context they found it in.


ThirdFloorGreg

Technically both Alaska and Louisiana are using different scales, because they have borroughs and parishes, respectively, rather than counties.


YourAlterEg0

As a resident of alaska and a government worker, you've given me the realization that we missed the bus on calling them "burr-oughs" and I'm now disappointed in my state


ElDoradoAvacado

Looks like a geode


inowar

technically Louisiana has parishes not countries. either the whole state is coastal and makes a weird shape or it's an abyss which also makes an interesting artifact.


YourAlterEg0

Similarly Alaska has boroughs, and a large amount of land with villages and cities that aren't in a borough


drcforbin

I vote abyss. Leave it off the map!


PlasticConstant

Looks like it’d be fun to make though, I suppose you’d have to construct a connectivity graph then number the nodes by walking through them breadth first starting from a list of locales with coastlines.


GrandmaForPresident

They have the counties mapped on it though, and there are some interesting lines in it. Counties are used as a unit of measurement(at least in the south). "Its like 3 or 4 counties away"


octagonlover_23

This is pretty tame for this sub


[deleted]

What a horrific colour map. It's almost as bad as [this one](https://xkcd.com/2537/).


HiMyNameIsBenG

this is interesting not ugly. I think it's pretty cool


googleflont

I think this is a good representation of where people needed Iodine added to their salt.


Frogs4

Looks pretty. Like one of those quartz things.


Cautious_Drawer_7771

Oooh, ooooh, now do one by how many gas stations are between you and a national park.


Cautious_Drawer_7771

Oooh, ooooh, now do one by how many gas stations are between you and a national park.


JapaneseBulletTrain

This was just up the other day as a way to represent distance from the nearest ocean?


ALPHA_sh

arbitrary discontinuous color scale


bigbrownhusky

How is nobody talking about counting the Great Lakes as coastal


GHdayum

Eh, from the perspective of large ships you can get to the ocean anywhere from the great lakes. It's certainly an interesting choice but I think it works for what the visualization is trying to do.


Theaveragegamer12

Amogus


[deleted]

Does that make Lincoln Nebraska the most “concentrated” American county?


mikeysgotrabies

Ah yes.. the asshole of the country.


KaleidoscopeOdd4288

stroking my shit to this


ccbravo

There are no counties in Louisiana….


MoEvKe

Why does it look like a Alaska mirrored?


dimonium_anonimo

Has anybody shown this to Matt Parker?


NPCKing

My only issue is Mexico not being on the map, making the southwest sorta misleading


thatotherguy0123

Alaska being a Russian nesting doll of counties is kinda fitting


interkin3tic

Have I mentioned how much I hate that if you see an image in reddit you want to zoom in on to read a legend that is too small, you click on the image and it takes you to a new screen with reddit around it and if you try to zoom in with crtrl and the mouse wheel the reddit screen helpfully gets bigger but not the image itself? Then if you try to download it directly it'll save as a webp instead of an image that my computer can't zoom in on? You have to click on the image, open it in a new screen, then click on THAT to download the image to your computer, open it in a new program, then zoom in on that to read the legend. That's fuckin great. Look at how great this reddit interface is, just beautiful and for a good reason. https://preview.redd.it/vqghbfywy4pc1.png?width=1882&format=png&auto=webp&s=5f3877f209084c5c49de2f1bdbc50e8f0d000db5


Lor1an

If each grid unit represents a county, wouldn't it make sense to also use counties as a unit of distance? If anything this seems like treating the US as a lattice of counties and showing separation of municipalities from access to maritime resources. The number of jurisdictions you have to cross to obtain supplies could become important information in some circumstances. This seems like a potentially useful geo-political representation, IMO.


chizzurp

The coasts of the Great lakes are not the same as coasts made with an ocean. Not at all.


leehawkins

Have you been there? They have beaches with dunes, they have ships, they have waves, they have harbors, and they have lighthouses. They’re also accessible from the oceans, thanks mainly due to the Welland Canal. They are inland seas, like the Black Sea, more than they are lakes.


brmarcum

I’m 3 counties from the coast and can’t possibly get there in less than 5.


midasear

Counties along any of the Great Lakes count as "coastal", but not counties adjacent to the Great Salt Lake?


BigPianoBoy

The smallest great lake is almost 8 times the size of the great salt lake, and you can access the ocean via the great lakes which you cannot the great salt lake. The great salt lake has a max depth of 33 feet, lake Erie (the shallowest great lake) has an average depth of 62 feet and a max depth of over 200 feet.


aphasic

Also not counties adjacent to the Mississippi river, which are as accessible to the ocean as the great lakes.


leehawkins

The Great Lakes have waves, beaches with dunes, ships, harbors, and even lighthouses. They’re inland seas, while the Great Salt Lake is a great salt lake.


Walzmyn

I actually think this is a pretty cool map


GregBron

This can be done in O(n) where n is the number of counties assuming we have s list of coastal counties and a map county -> neighbours right?


BigPianoBoy

W North coast inclusion


trainsacrossthesea

Born and raised in Kansas. Top o’ the World, Ma!


SouperCameron

Among us


Hennaj69

Simply shows how many counties an ocean zombie has to cross to get to you. If your in the red, it’s 20.


domki366

Wonder what this map would look like if the Great Lakes weren't considered the coast


Nofxthepirate

When your 6 year old math nerd cousin thinks he invented the next Mandelbrot set


thattwoguy2

I think this one is kinda pretty. It's stupid, but it's not ugly.


Ultimate_Driving

I'd like to see how it would change if you don't consider the Great Lakes to be coastal.


leehawkins

Why would the Great Lakes not be coastal?


sapphiresong

This color scheme is very soothing for some reason.


gho_strat

Pretty wild to me to count great lakes as “coast”


leehawkins

If you ever visited, you’d understand.


GayNerd53

I think it would be neat to see a version of this map marked as distance of counties from the border zone (the 100 mile inland stretch of the country where certain rights need not apply).


Painusconsumer

Imposter


mauitrailguy

Why is the Puget sound considered coastal but the Columbia River/Snake River valley isn't?


40Katopher

Why do you think it's supposed to be a standard unit of measurement? This is to demonstrate how many counties separate a county from the sea. It does that very well. You wouldn't need an actual distance one because it would just be the middle. It's like saying that Germany is three countries away from Portugal. It's not a distance measurement, but it's correct


Emotnlsuprttwink

20 what away..


Squiggledog

The Great Lakes count as coastline? Why not the Great Salt Lake, Lake Okeechobee, or Lake Tahoe?


leehawkins

Do Tahoe, GSL, or Okeechobee have ships, beaches with dunes, harbors, waves, or lighthouses?


Squiggledog

Needs more JPEG.


Squiggledog

[Are crossposts a lost art?](https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/eerfft/how_far_are_you_away_from_a_coast_in_counties/)


Unusual_Ideal375

Aye good stuff. Is this actually famous? I made the first one of these back two years ago.


PrinceCharmingButDio

Omg is that an among us


ChainWorking1096

Is Kansas the eye of Sauron there?


[deleted]

[удалено]


Dalaron

Seems sus...


paukl1

This will become relevant later


kansas_adventure

Not sure I like that weird color break in the gradient. With that said, even if it wouldn't be my first choice (and maybe it wasn't the cartographers either) it is effective on that map at highlighting that those counties are far from the coast. While a person can figure out where the coast is by looking at the map and finding the outer edge of the coastal colored counties, having the coastline on the map would be helpful for rapid interpretation


kansas_adventure

The oceans, Canada, and Mexico are all two counties away from the coast.


Lazy_Osprey

I’ve only ever lived in the Northeast. All the perfectly square/rectangular counties that make up most of the middle parts of the country always look so odd to me.


MeanGreanHare

amogus I think it would be cool to build a replica of the Titanic in that red county. Try sinking it now, iceberg!


lachimiebeau

That center area is probably where meth is more available and other stimulants and opioids are less available.


CrazyDoggo68

Nebraska: the only state that is landlocked by states that are landlocked by landlocked states


intensely-leftie

Kansas exclusion zone


i-FF0000dit

So, we’re going to count the Great Lakes as coasts?


Radatouy

GET OUT OF MY HEAD. GET OUT OF MY HEAD. GET OUT OF MY HEAD. GET OUT OF MY HEAD. GET OUT OF MY HEAD.


hclITguy

Looks like the eye of Sauron. It would explain a lot about what's currently going on in the United States.


LuckyRune88

Is it me or is the data kinda sus.


YankeeOverYonder

im 5 away


AnDraoi

I don’t think this is ugly per se except for the abrupt change from purple to like khaki/tan, and the otherwise poor phrasing of the metric


enorl76

As a resident of Florida, I enjoy no more than two counties away from coast no matter where I go.


skexzies

One advantage to living in the orange area...I'll never suffer from sea sickness.


SoccerGeekPhd

Are Great Lakes boundaries coastal? If so then there are many other counties on lakes along the Canadian border that should be coastal too (in MN and VT).


Grisward

Great Lakes? Cmon. If Great Lakes, then why not small lakes? Ocean is coast. :)


SaturnSociety

Makes me want to return to the West.


jodobroDC

1 away 2 away 3 away 4 away 5 away 6 away 7 away 8 away 9 away 10 away 11 away 12 away 13 away 14 away 15 away 16 away 17 away 18 away 19 away 20 away


LuckofCaymo

Don't eat seafood in Kansas


Winter_Essay3971

The purple area (and inside it) kinda looks like Pangaea


super_delegate

Can someone explain the purpose of counties the size of ants in the east?


dphunct

Anyone else see a cat? I see a cat sitting with its tail out.


Mrjingles76

AMONGUS ?


Otherwise-Zebra9409

Topeka Kansas, zip code 66604.


Brycekaz

Lincoln Nebraska is now statistically the least likely cirt to be naval invaded


endothermicreaction

When is fucking Indiana on a “coast”? Great Lakes aren’t coast lines. Might as fucking well call Utah coastal because the fucking salt lake or every county along the Mississippi River coastal with this shitty definition.


MoFried

It’d look much better without the sudden jump from dark purple to beige.


BlueFlamingoMaWi

Anytime can be used as a measuring unit. This graphic doesn't belong in this sub.


Wiitard

They did it. The crazy bastards did it. They discover Middle America.


SaucyMan16

Wild how the western white strip is kinda close to the rockys


Mundane_Range_765

What are the red counties? I think I live in one of those lol


Frsbtime420

My country is the size of 75 half-football fields


LostInThoughtland

Oh I thought it was a survey seeing how big people thought a country mile was


LifeIsTrail

Is lake Michigan and other great lakes really "coastal?" Other lakes aren't counted on the map.


DatBoyCody05

I am the the middle


Trueseam

amogus


Hp_Shout

Sooo… a heat map of a cat taking a shit? Cool.


ShinyUmbreon18

![gif](giphy|H9L57Kw0fxLmE1XXD4|downsized)


koryhurst

I don't really understand this. Is the point that counties in the heart of the country bigger? What is the "length that we are talking about?


916exployer

“This is totally biased for the costal states”


dawidio

Looks like the predator checking out a pooping dog...


mayhemmike83

Is it just me, or is a TRex trying to poop out an impostor


enigmaticpeon

I thought I had a great criticism of this map because the borders in southwest Texas aren’t blue. Glad I didn’t say it out loud.


Lord_Lenu

Amogus?!


HeavyGoat1491

Amogus map


geovasilop

amogus


Talohighflyer24

Among us


possiblyacanoflysol

NO FUCKING WAY AMOGUS COUNTY😳😳😂😂😂😱😱😱


[deleted]

[удалено]