Lab 7

         The first map shows the percent Black population in the United States. The data is broken up into five intervals, with the lighter colors corresponding to lower concentrations of black people and the darker colors corresponding to a higher concentrations of black people. According to the map, the area with the highest concentration of black people is the south, in such states as Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Virginia, and more. In most other areas of the United States, the Black population is relatively low, as can be seen by the lights yellow shading in most of the country. However, urban areas usually show a spike in Black population.
         The second map is a map depicting the Asian population in the United States. The legend is also broken up into five intervals with the darkening blue shades representing larger Asian populations. From the map, the darkest areas are on the west coast, particularly in California and Washington. In those states there are several counties achieving the 21-47% Asian population bracket, the highest bracket. Overall, the Asian population seems to be larger in urban areas. In California, the darkest shades of blue occur in the Bay Area and Los Angeles areas and in Washington they occur in the Seattle region. Outside the west coast this still holds true, for there are pockets of higher Asian concentration in big cities, especially in the northeast, New York city region.
          The third map depicts the population of other races in the United States. Once again, the map legend is divided into five brackets with darker red meaning higher other race population. According to this map the areas of the United States with the highest population of other races are the west and the southwest. Some major states that seem to have particularly high other race populations are Texas, New Mexico, California, and Washington. Other than these areas of the U.S., most of the rest of the country falls in the first two brackets, meaning there is low other race populations. However, there still are spikes in other race populations in urban areas as can be seen in places like Florida, Illinois, and New York.
          This lab on census map series was fairly interesting. I found it interesting how I could take census data listed in excel and bring that census data to life with GIS. It truly does give a better representation of the data compared to when it was just listed in excel. I also liked how I could choose the number of breaks and percentage brackets to be able to represent the data in a specific way. In this way, I really have a lot of control when it comes to how the maps will be presented.
          Although I liked that fact that I have a lot of control in how the census maps were presented, I can see how being able to alter these features can also skew the meaning of data. By simply changing the number of breaks and percentages, a map could misinform and give false impressions to a population. Even so, this census map series was a good experience that enabled me to further explore GIS's capabilities. However, while creating these maps I did run into some errors, which followed me throughout the lab. And sometimes, these errors are difficult to pinpoint and fix. This is what I see as a potential downfall of GIS, that little mistakes here and there can really affect the outcome of your map.