Lab8: Census 2000/2010

  

 
   The above maps represent the Census data regarding specific races across the United States. The purple map illustrates the spread of African Americans throughout the country. There is a notable cluster of this race in the southeastern portion of the country. There is a small cluster of moderate distribution in the southern California, however a significant majority of the African American population can be found in the southeastern United States. This could be due to the fact that African Americans remained in the southern area of the United States where their ancestors migrated to from Africa.

     As shown in the Asian distribution map, majority of the Asian population live in California and the northern part of Alaska. There are a few dark clusters of Asian communities in the Seattle area and evenly speckled throughout the rest of the country, but those communities are few and far between. A possibility for this could be that when they migrate to the states, Asians typically reside in the major gateways such as Los Angeles, New York City, Seattle, or Houston.

     In addition to the Asian and African American distributions, “other” may be selected as a race and therefore represented in the blue map; a “singular other” race’s distribution is represented.  The clustered distribution for this race is noticeable in the southern portion of the United States with some highly populated areas stretching to the northwest through Nevada, Idaho, and Oregon. These dense communities aren’t located near major cities and are possibly more associated with non-specific or combined races that wouldn’t fit into a specific category. Thus, these areas may represent a type of overlap of other ethnic populated communities.

     Throughout this quarter I have learned a great amount of useful information that I believe will assist me in future classes regarding GIS. I find our technological capabilities fascinating and would like to learn more about what is possible through integrating information geographically. Ultimately I would like to minor in Geospatial Information Systems because I believe it would make for an interesting career. In my opinion, the most appealing lab was when we were mapping the information from the Station Fire. Learning how to represent the burn patterns in 3-D was something I feel could be useful in the future. I also feel that there are so many more capabilities available through ArcGIS and that this class did a great job teaching the basics so that now in my future classes, I will be able to go into greater depth with the functions available in the program.