Census Data Mapper Map & Analysis - October 2013

LINK to this map on Google Drive This thematic, chloropleth map illustrates the percent of Black or African American people living across the United States by county. The largest concentration of African Americans is centralized in the Southeast, stretching all the way from Maryland to the eastern corner of Texas; this region is known as the “Black Belt”. There appears to be large populations of African Americans living in the larger cities outside of this main cluster, such as Minneapolis, MN., Detroit, MI., and Chicago, IL. Although there are some fairly well populated areas outside of the Black Belt, such as in Southern California and Texas, most of the African American population is focused throughout the Southern East Coast. In contrast, there are barely any African Americans in the West and Midwest regions,

Reasons why African American people are located mainly in the Southeast or what is known as the Black Belt region is because this is where many people who owned African slaves lived. After slavery was abolished, most slaves stayed where they were or moved to other states near them. This explains the high population percentages in this region because descendants of slave laborers still live in this region and people tend to stay where they and their parents were raised. Reasons that explain why there are high percentages of African American people living in larger cities such as Minneapolis, Detroit and Chicago may be related to how people can live in larger cities and still have a good life even if they don’t have a lot of money. People in larger cities have access to a lot more resources, such as stores and schools, than people in smaller, more rural towns. An explanation to the extremely low percentages of blacks in the West and Midwest is that a lot of the land in these areas is farmland and it isn’t very populated with humans in general, not just African Americans.

These patterns make an impact in many ways, but strictly in culture differences. This means that in the areas where there are higher populations of African American people, you will experience that culture more than you would if you were in the West/Midwest where there are very low concentrations of African Americans. For instance, if a resident of McLean County, North Dakota, where there is a population percentage of 0.1% African Americans, were to go on a vacation to Jefferson County, Mississippi, where there is a population percentage of 85.7% African Americans, that would be quite a culture shock. This would be a culture shock not only in the difference of the amount of African American people, but probably also in the food, music and maybe even in the way they talk.

Activity Space Map - September 2013

View Activity Space Map in a larger map