lab 7

The first map is the distribution of Black people in the United States. The darker color indicates a higher percentage of Black population while the lighter ones indicate a smaller percentage of Black population. As we can see from the map, there are much more black people in southern part of the U.S than in the north. Some states have black people ratio up to 86%. The reason may be historical since we know that southern part used to be the place of slaveries.  

The 2^nd map is the distribution of Asian population in the United States. In my map, I divide Asians’ density into 6 levels. The darker red color indicates a higher percentage of Asian population. The lighter one indicates a lower percentage. From the map, we can see that Asian people like to live on the coasts, while in the central US there are fewer Asian people. One of the reasons may be the job opportunity. Since most of the large cities are on the coast, many Asians like to be there to get a job. For example, cities like NYC, SF, LA, the Asian population there are nearly 50%, which is really high.

The last one is the distribution of other race in the United States. The darker green color means a higher percentage of other race, while a lighter one means a lower percentage. In the map, from Texas to east coast, there is a high percentage of other race. I guess the reason is that most of these people are from mexico or South America  and states like Texas, California are closer to their countries . Thus, they will choose these states. However, the overall percentage of other race is not as high as black and Asian. The highest percentage is still less than 40%.

In conclusion, the three maps above show the population distribution in the US. In lab7, I find that census map can provide a lot of information about geography. We can use ArcGIS to analyze the map. ArcGIS is very useful and the maps we make is pretty straight forward. Even some people without much background can understand them well. After this lab, I am more familiar with ArcGIS and its functions right now.