Design
Cornfields, Trees, and Water: Mapping the Rest of America
Most maps of the U.S. prioritize metropolitan areas. But "Minimal Maps" single out the nation's forests, crops, and waterbodies.
Eighty percent of the U.S. population lives in "urban" areas, a staggering 249,253,271 souls. Yet these folks live in just 3 percent of the country's 2.3 billion acres of land. Most of America's 50 states are forestland (30 percent), pasture and ranges (27 percent), and crops (18 percent), with parks, tundra, and swamps making up the rest.
These are statistics that never fail to blow my provincially urban mind—in part, perhaps, because most maps of the country visually prioritize metropolitan areas.