counties

Mapping the United States’ Korean Population

By Matt Stiles | Matt Stiles | Topics: South Korea

I’ve often felt fortunate that I get to write about South Korea for the Los Angeles Times, a newspaper that’s still interested in stories related to life, politics and culture here — not just the strongman to the North.

That interest is in part because the Times remains a serious paper that’s trying to stay committed to foreign news, but also because a decent portion of its readers are Korean. The Los Angeles metro area, for example, has more than 340,000 people of Korean descent, about a fifth of the overall Korean population in the United States, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

I’ve written before about South Korean expatriates overseas. These maps, however, show the population of all ethnic Koreans who have settled in Los Angeles and across the United States.

Let’s start with Los Angeles and a caveat: I may write for the Times, but I don’t yet know its geography (especially not like these fine folks).

This map shows Los Angeles County, which has about 230,000 people of Korean ancestry, according to the 2010* Census. The deep teal colors in the center of the county reflect the population of Koreatown, a neighborhood inside the city of Los Angeles. This place is legit Korean. There’s even a Paris Baguette! There are several suburban areas, such as Glendale, north of Koreatown, that also have a relatively high proportion of Korean residents.

This map shows the Korean share across the country, by county. Most counties have tiny proportions of Koreans. (My home county in East Texas had a grand total of 194 Koreans, or about 0.16 percent of its population). Other areas, such as Southern California, the mid-Atlantic coast and the New York metro area have comparatively large Korean populations.  

This map uses the same data set but a different visualization technique — proportional symbols, not shaded county boundaries. Larger symbols, or bubbles, represent a higher number of Koreans in raw figures, not proportions.

And, finally, here are two tables with the top 25 counties by both measures — proportion and population:

* I chose this data set because it was the last hard count of all Americans by the Census Bureau. The agency also conducts large, quality surveys between each decennial census, but detailed questions, such as specific ancestral or ethnic origin, can come with high margins of error at smaller geography levels. The hard count also isn’t perfect, but it’s the best we have for national county-level maps until 2020.

The Nation’s Most Consistently Partisan Counties In Presidential Elections

By Matt Stiles | Matt Stiles | Topics: Policy & Politics

When it comes to recent presidential elections, geography — at least in some stubborn places — is destiny.

Voters in more than 1,600 American counties — a little more than half of those* in the United States — have consistently selected the same political party in each presidential election since George H.W. Bush faced off against Michael Dukakis. Chances are many of them will do so again this election cycle, too.

This first map shows each of the counties. They represent a wide swath of American geography — large and small, densely and sparsely populated, rural and urban. The colors show the familiar red/blue categorization of Republicans and Democrats, with darker shades representing a higher respective vote share on average.

seven_counties

About 1,330 of the counties have voted each cycle for the Republican nominee. They are generally less populous, with some exceptions, and clustered across the country in large patches that are obviously familiar to the GOP:

seven_counties_rep

The Democrats have far fewer consistently partisan counties — around 315 — but theirs are somewhat more populous and urban, and they have higher concentrations of minority voters. Again, that’s comfortable turf for Democrats:

seven_counties_dem

Given the differences between the two parties’ counties, plotting them on a map isn’t necessarily the best way to view this data. That’s because the larger, less-populous red counties in the West tend to disproportionally shade the national picture. Conversely, the blue counties tend to be smaller and more densely populated and therefore don’t get fair shake visually.

Another way to look at the data is with a tree map. In the examples below, counties are proportionally drawn in squares and rectangles and clustered by state. Both are then sized based on their respective average vote totals over the seven elections. The colors and sizes at the county level reflect the political party its voters favor — and the average votes per cycle for that party. The result is a clearer picture of each party’s pool of support.

Here’s a version with both parties (see a larger, interactive version here). Notice that the blue area for Democrats is a bit more representative than on the geographic map:

treemap_both

Here’s the Democratic map, which includes many fewer (but more populous) counties and plenty of votes:

treemap_d

The Republicans have a few populous counties, too, but many of them are tiny, as represented on this map:

treemap_r

Again, check out the larger interactive version to filter the maps, see partisan vote averages by county, and even toggle between individual state maps.

Though counties are generally a useless level of geography for presidential elections, it’s still fun to look at which areas inside states are consistently shaping partisan destiny.

* Counties in Alaska and Hawaii not included because Alaska has wacky county problems across elections. Also because of laziness.

Mapping Consistently Partisan Counties

By Matt Stiles | Matt Stiles | Topics: Policy & Politics

When it comes to recent presidential elections, geography — at least in some stubborn places — is destiny.

Voters in more than 1,600 American counties — a little more than half of those* in the United States — have consistently selected the same political party in each presidential election since George H.W. Bush faced off against Michael Dukakis. Chances are many of them will do so again this election cycle, too.

This first map shows each of the counties. They represent a wide swath of American geography — large and small, densely and sparsely populated, rural and urban. The colors show the familiar red/blue categorization of Republicans and Democrats, with darker shades representing a higher respective vote share on average.

seven_counties

About 1,330 of the counties have voted each cycle for the Republican nominee. They are generally less populous, with some exceptions, and clustered across the country in large patches that are obviously familiar to the GOP:

seven_counties_rep

The Democrats have far fewer consistently partisan counties — around 315 — but theirs are somewhat more populous and urban, and they have higher concentrations of minority voters. Again, that’s comfortable turf for Democrats:

seven_counties_dem

Given the differences between the two parties’ counties, plotting them on a map isn’t necessarily the best way to view this data. That’s because the larger, less-populous red counties in the West tend to disproportionally shade the national picture. Conversely, the blue counties tend to be smaller and more densely populated and therefore don’t get fair shake visually.

Another way to look at the data is with a tree map. In the examples below, counties are proportionally drawn in squares and rectangles and clustered by state. Both are then sized based on their respective average vote totals over the seven elections. The colors and sizes at the county level reflect the political party its voters favor — and the average votes per cycle for that party. The result is a clearer picture of each party’s pool of support.

Here’s a version with both parties (see a larger, interactive version here). Notice that the blue area for Democrats is a bit more representative than on the geographic map:

treemap_both

Here’s the Democratic map, which includes many fewer (but more populous) counties and plenty of votes:

treemap_d

The Republicans have a few populous counties, too, but many of them are tiny, as represented on this map:

treemap_r

Again, check out the larger interactive version to filter the maps, see partisan vote averages by county, and even toggle between individual state maps.

Though counties are generally a useless level of geography for presidential elections, it’s still fun to look at which areas inside states are consistently shaping partisan destiny.

* Counties in Alaska and Hawaii not included because Alaska has wacky county problems across elections. Also because of laziness.

Where ‘Anglos’ are the Minority

By Matt Stiles | Matt Stiles | Topics: Demographics, Policy & Politics

I’ve posted before about “majority minority” counties — places where non-Hispanic whites represent less than half the population. They were critical to President Obama’s election in 2008, and their numbers continue to grow.

The number of “majority minority” counties — now the most in modern U.S. history — have doubled since 1980, according to the Pew Research Center.

The most-recent population estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau show that non-Hispanic whites (or “Anglos,” as my Texas friends call them) are the minority in 364 counties.

There are 151 that don’t have a single racial or ethnic group in the majority, making them the country’s most-diverse places. Hispanics are more than half the population in 94 counties, mostly in the Southwest, followed by blacks (93, mostly in the Deep South) and American Indians/Alaska natives (26, mostly in the Great Plains and Alaska).

Here’s a quick map:

'Majority Minority' Counties

‘Majority Minority’ Counties

The number of these counties, of course, will continue to grow and shape our culture and politics. Tomorrow we’ll look at these locations in the context of the current presidential primaries.