Incredible Maps of the US that will Change the Way You See the Country...

you gotta love maps honestly who doesn't they're a great way to better understand the world we live in if you are subscribed to this channel i bet like me you're a big fan of maps so in this video just like the one i made a couple months ago i'm gonna take you through a few of my favorite maps mostly the us but some of the world as well to hopefully give you a better sense of the similarities and differences between various parts of the country and the world hello and welcome to that is interesting i'm your host carter today incredible maps of the us that will change the way you see the country the first map i'll discuss is called nativeland.ca it's an incredibly comprehensive interactive map depicting the world in terms of the indigenous people who inhabited specific regions prior to their colonization the map is constantly being added to and expanded and currently shows canada the us mexico central america the caribbean australia and new zealand parts of the pacific like hawaii guam the northern marianas the ryukyu islands in the cruel islands arctic regions like greenland scandinavia and parts of russia and much of south america which is still being put together if you've seen any videos in the us explained a series where i make a video on each state territory and federal district in the country you might recognize this interactive map which i've used to determine the indigenous peoples whose homeland sits in each state it includes a button to turn on labels which overlap the map with modern political boundaries cities and towns this can be a helpful way to find where you live and learn more about the native people whose ancestral land you reside in nativeland.ca is a very interesting map that i definitely recommend you check out next up is a series of maps created by hungarian map maker grasshopper geography it splits the world up into different watersheds basins in which all precipitation eventually drains to the same place these are just fascinating to look at you can see that coastal areas are split into tons of tiny watersheds usually smaller creeks that start in areas not far from the sea whereas inland single watersheds like that of the mississippi can take up vast swaths of land in drier more mountainous areas some valleys may be completely cut off from the ocean and not receive enough rainfall to fill up into lakes that then get large enough to overflow creating what are known as endoric basins areas where rivers flow into lakes that then go nowhere with water leaving through evaporation in the hot desert sun you can see plenty of these in hot desert areas like nevada and much of the us's mountain west in the yucatan peninsula of mexico a large inland section is home to a bunch of self-contained watersheds as well despite it being flat and having plenty of rain unlike other mountainous desert areas where that is not the case i'm guessing that this is due to the presence of cenotes which are essentially sinkholes that have filled up with water and are super common in the region many are located in an enormous ring marking the edge of the cheek chalub crater the location where the meteor that brought an end to the dinosaurs struck the earth there are plenty of incredible watershed maps to see here the outback of australia is dotted with too many self-contained evaporation basins that count including some that sit right next to rivers i'm also very curious about what's going on right here so if anyone from australia knows why the watersheds in this section are all in straight lines leave a comment below to let me know the sahara 2 looks really impressive on this map as does greenland which due to the presence of its vast ice sheet only the outline of is visible there are plenty of places to see these watershed maps i found them on the smithsonian magazine and i definitely encourage you to check them out the next map is made by business insider and it is pretty mind-blowing it shows the us broken down by county but the blue counties that have been selected are home to half of the country's population and the gray counties home to another half this is just a fascinating way to visualize the sheer differences in population density between urban and rural areas even though two counties may take up the same amount of land some may be home to only a couple hundred residents while others may be home to millions if you live in the u.s take a look at this map i imagine many of you live in one of the 146 highlighted counties which range from los angeles county and california home to a stunning 10 million residents to williamson county texas a suburban county to the north of austin home to almost 600 thousand leave a comment below if you live in one of the highlighted counties and be sure to check out this map this map which i found on vivid maps depicts the counties of the us broken down by the most common country or ethnic group the ancestors of its residents were part of this is interesting because it shows clear patterns in how immigrants settled in the united states often choosing to live alongside people from the same country who spoke the same language in addition the population patterns of some ethnic groups in the us were a result of force black americans many of whose ancestors were forcibly enslaved and brought to the country in chains are today the predominant ancestry group across many counties of the southeastern u.s where the evil practice of slavery was most prevalent as well as in many northern cities where millions fled during the great migration moving north to escape the persecution of the jim crow south and seek better job opportunities that opened up during the world wars in the western us many counties are majority native american for the most part these are locations of reservations such as the navajo nation in the southwest but you'll notice that there are only one or two such majority indigenous counties in the eastern u.s most native people that survive the spread of diseases brought from europe like smallpox as well as the genocidal practices of colonial expansion were often forced west such as the cherokee who make up the largest ancestral group in several oklahoma counties but whose homeland is located in the southeastern part of the country in states like georgia in terms of immigrant groups you can see that many residents of the northern united states especially in the midwest are descendants of german immigrants in fact german americans make up the largest ancestry group overall in the country 16.4 percent in the southwest and mountain west residents of many counties are descendants of immigrants from mexico and descendants of irish immigrants inhabit parts of the south alongside northeastern areas like massachusetts and upstate new york there's also one county way out in montana that i'd be interested in knowing the story behind for a country dominated by the english language you'll probably be surprised to see that in few parts of the country are most people descended from english immigrants mostly the upper new england states and parts of utah and idaho due to the fact that most mormons members of the lds church are of english descent french ancestry is dominant in the rural parts of upper new england that border quebec as well as in parts of louisiana which has a long french history many descendants of italian immigrants live in the new york metro area and many people in the rural upper midwest trace their ancestry to immigrants from norway in san francisco which acted as the historic gateway to immigration from east asia more residents have ancestors from china than any other country and many people in other counties along the pacific coast trace their ancestry to immigrants from other asian nations such as japan and hawaii and the philippines and hawaii and alaska residents of miami-dade county and florida are predominantly of cuban descent and residents of another county in florida are primarily puerto rican luzern county in pennsylvania is the only mostly polish american county in the country and bristol county in massachusetts is the only mainly portuguese-american one you can also find some counties sprinkled throughout the midwest where most people's ancestors came from the netherlands and i've seen other maps that show the upper peninsula of michigan as having a large finnish american population this map is a fascinating way to visualize how immigrants to the u.s often settled and continue to settle near one another and the impact these different communities have had on shaping the country we know today also just for fun this map made by maptitude does the exact same thing but depicts it using flags so it is less detailed but creates an interesting visual element it was shared on my discord server so if you're interested in seeing more fascinating maps like the ones i'm showing this video then please feel free to join i'll put the link in the description the next map builds off of the last one it's an interactive map made by the washington post that shows every county in the country in which at least 10 percent of households speak a language other than english at home spanish is most common but other areas have large populations that speak indigenous languages along with french chinese german and other languages at home it does a great job depicting the various linguistic communities in the us and serves as a strong reminder that despite the prevalence of english and public life the united states is very much a multi-lingual country the final map i'll discuss in this video is called an extremely detailed map of the 2020 election made by the new york times it's a follow-up to a map i discussed in my fascinating maps video which did the same for the 2016 election just like the map in that video this map shows how the country voted down to the last precinct this makes it far more detailed than other electoral maps which typically show voting patterns by state or even county just as with last time maps like this can be pretty misleading there's a lot of red far more than there is blue on the map but in reality there are pretty similar numbers of republicans and democrats on the country and elections rarely ever are a landslide especially in the popular vote on top of that 2020 of course saw biden the democratic party's nominee win the presidency the reason that so much land on the map is colored red is due to the urban rural divide that plays a major role in u.s politics with voters in cities typically supporting democrats and voters in rural areas usually supporting republicans precincts in rural areas are often home to a couple hundred voters and tend to vote red move into a city however and the precincts become not only smaller but bluer and are usually home to a similar amount if not more of voters long story short while there are about even numbers of democrats and republicans in the u.s democrats tend to live in more densely populated areas whereas republicans tend to live in more sparsely populated ones there are some maps that take that into account such as this one which warps the physical size of states so they are proportional to their population or this one which shows one dot per vote in the last maps video i focused on areas that did not follow the urban rural divide and in this one i'll focus instead on the potential long-term political trends that this map shows first off a couple things about this map one as of now it's only 81 complete i don't blame them props to ever is working on this because making a map that's detailed looks incredibly difficult but as time goes on they've been able to fill in more and more and we can still get a lot from what there is already it's also generally more user friendly than the last one when hovering over counties or precincts it calculates and displays for you the margins the respective winner won each buy which is just a nice touch in addition it contains a button that allows you to toggle between it and another map one which has calculated the differences in each precinct between 2020 and 2016 and shows whether that specific precinct or county has trended either more republican or more democratic between the two elections this means that on this change from 2016 map places that appear red for example may not have actually had a majority of voters vote republican just more than in the last election if you want an idea of how certain parts of the country are trending politically this can be a useful tool often people will just look at which states flipped in an election and states usually flip every year but this gets far more specific and shows trends even in states that did not flip for a look at how this map should appear if there is really no change between elections let's take a look at rural kansas some precincts got redder some got bluer but these appear pretty haphazard and random other areas of the country though had clear trends moving in one direction or another much was made after the election of trump's improvement among latino voters and indeed through this map you can see that areas with large latino populations such as los angeles grew significantly redder even though in the case of la it barely made a dent other areas home to many latino americans such as south texas and the miami area also turned redder turning two democratic strongholds into pretty competitive areas the results in miami are particularly striking for democrats to win such a major urban area places where the party typically does best by a relatively slim margin of just seven percent was quite a surprise and likely helped cost biden the state of florida trump also appears to have further solidified the republican grip on the states of utah and arkansas however other than miami biden did about as well as democrats typically do in major cities and more than made up for losses elsewhere with decisive wins in the suburbs if you look at a lot of the cities on this map you can see what looks sort of like a donut surrounding them this is a result of the cities themselves getting either slightly bluer redder or staying about the same compared to 2016 while these suburbs got significantly bluer creating a wide blue ring around many of them this blue suburban donut appears around nearly every city on this map and is even more consequential because suburbs are typically very politically competitive if you look at a state like georgia which saw biden win a narrow surprise victory this is extremely evident in metro atlanta while he may not have picked up every suburban county candidates need to win states not counties so every county and precinct where democrats improved contributed to a win if you look at major metro areas in the five states biden flipped georgia arizona michigan wisconsin and pennsylvania he outperformed hillary clinton's margins in the suburbs each time another interesting trend is that the northeast became solidly more blue the region is already a democratic stronghold so it won't do much but make the state safer for democrats but it's interesting nonetheless finally there's been lots of talk of texas flipping for the democrats sometime in the future and while republicans did better in 2020 in south texas other parts of the state located on the edges of many of its major cities did get bluer which in my opinion will make it an interesting state to watch if you are interested in us geography which if you watched this far it would seem that you are i have a series called the us explained where i make an in-depth video on the geography history and culture of each state territory and federal district in the united states if you're more interested in international geography i have plenty of videos on those topics as well also please check out the ti store where you can purchase some great that is interesting merchandise and consider joining my patreon both are great ways to support the channel my discord server is a great place to connect with other viewers and talk about topics that you're interested in links to all three will be in the description thank you for watching this video and i hope you learned something new subscribe for more content like this i cover the countries cities people and places of the world and beyond these videos will leave you saying that is interesting [Music] you

Channel: That Is Interesting

Views: 411,807

Keywords: facts, incredible, interesting, maps

Id: n0jOB1jGkJs

Length: 17min 1sec (1021 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 12 2021