This map uses housing data to arrive at the minimum salary required in each state to buy an average-priced home.  howmuch.net/articles/salary-to-afford-the-average-home-in-your-state

Baseball season is underway, and this map shows regions of the U.S. (and southern Canada) defined by proximity to the nearest Major League Baseball park. Who would have guessed that the region for the Atlanta Braves is the largest by population?
i.redditmedia.com/l3V-K7eOv3bS70yqtJmjhvvPqiSBgYG4Br0-qAReKw0.jpg?w=1024&s=fd4c85b4d228683b15b2f6e787f04078

Most people associate potatoes with Idaho and citrus with Florida. What is less well known is that roughly half of all the mushrooms grown commercially in the United States are grown in a single county in Pennsylvania (Chester County, just west of Philadelphia). Geographers researching risks to the mushroom industry are finding that changes in U.S. immigration policy are at the top of the list: because mushrooms are harvested by hand, the industry is heavily dependent on immigrant labor, mostly from Latin America. phys.org/news/2018-03-mushroom-geography.html

This map compares U.S. educational attainment, as measured by high school graduation rates, by state, with countries of similar educational attainment. www.homesnacks.net/this-surprising-map-shows-all-50-states-renamed-for-countries-with-similar-education-levels-123796/

Despite the current uptick in tensions, distrust of Russia is nothing new. This map from 1957 shows areas (in pink) and specific sites (in red) that were off limits to anyone with a Soviet passport. news.nationalgeographic.com/2018/03/russia-cold-war-travel-ban-maps-red-scare

Some jurisdictions are in a hurry to move towards fully electric cars. Electric cars, though, still depend on electricity, and how that electricity is generated makes a difference in terms of indirect emissions per mile traveled. This map provides that comparison. static.digg.com/images/6bf5c985bf0f44ebb1fcaf95709d8024_3a0fd41251c34757a1c37dd6b63d9deb_1_post.jpeg

This interesting interactive map considers student debt and allows users to compare average loan balances and delinquency rates, by race or in aggregate, across the U.S.
www.mappingstudentdebt.org/#/map-1-an-introduction

This map compares when slavery was formally abolished in the Western Hemisphere. (Because of colonization patterns, not everything lines up neatly with contemporary nation-state borders.) hillfighter.deviantart.com/art/Abolition-of-Slavery-Americas-215869460

Most of the U.S. recently switched over to daylight saving time. But there are exceptions, mostly having to do with physical geography. Hawaii and tropical U.S. territories (e.g., Puerto Rico, Guam, the Virgin Islands, American Samoa) do not use daylight saving time. Proximity to the equator makes seasonal variation in daylight less noticeable. Arizona also does not use daylight saving time; the intense daytime heat turns extra daylight into a disadvantage. Interestingly, the Navajo Nation (whose territory is mostly in Arizona but includes adjacent parts of Utah and New Mexico) does use daylight saving time, but the Hopi Reservation, which is an enclave within Navajo lands, does not.  roundtripticket.me/media/time-zone-map-of-the-united-states-throughout-north-america.jpg

Google tracks search terms and can aggregate search data by state. These two maps compare where residents searched for "gun shops" vs. "gun control" more frequently. The map on the left is from the last week of February (i.e., after the Florida high school shooting). The map on the right is from the previous year. www.businessinsider.com/gun-control-gun-shop-map-2018-3

With possible trade wars in the headlines, it may be instructive to understand how much various states depend on foreign trade. This topological map shows the percentage of each state's GDP that is derived from international trade (the bigger the pink circle in the center=the greater the % of GDP connected to foreign trade). The states most dependent on international trade: Michigan (auto industry), Louisiana (petroleum/chemicals), South Carolina (BMW/Boeing), Tennessee (auto industry: Nissan, GM, Volkswagen), and Kentucky (auto industry: Toyota, Ford). howmuch.net/articles/how-important-is-international-trade-to-the-economy-of-each-state

This unusual topological map compares the life expectancy in each U.S. state to the national average from 1980 to 2014. Where you can see gold, a state's life expectancy exceeds the national average; where you can see lavender, a state's life expectancy is lower than the national average. The shape of the colored region indicates how closely a state's change in life expectancy paralleled the increase in U.S. life expectancy over this period: Minnesota's life expectancy, for example, has been consistently higher than the national average, whereas South Carolina's has been consistently lower, and Oklahoma has lost ground, while New York has gained ground. espnfivethirtyeight.files.wordpress.com/2017/05/barry-jester-life-expectancy-2.png

The U.S. Geological Survey has made it easy to see some of the stunning vistas of the national park system from your living room. If you have 3-D glasses, you can opt to take your virtual tour in 3-D too! From caves to seashores to mountains to deserts, this site samples dozens of national parks: 3dparks.wr.usgs.gov/

"[C]an someone's geographical location play a part in whether they will join a hate group? According to a group of University of Utah geographers whose research was published in the Annals of the American Association of Geographers on Friday, the answer is yes. 'Hate is a geographic problem. The ways people hate are based on the cultures, histories, ethnicities and many other factors dependent on place and place perception,' the geographers said in a news release." www.deseretnews.com/article/900010002/geography-of-hate-u-study-examines-hate-groups-based-on-region.html

In honor of Presidents' Day, this map shows the birthplace of all U.S. presidents through Barack Obama. (Donald Trump, like Martin Van Buren, Millard Fillmore, and both Roosevelts, was born in New York.) www.livescience.com/53372-presidential-birth-places.html

Between 1950 and 2016, the population of the U.S. more than doubled, growing by roughly 114%. But, as this map shows, that population growth was not spread evenly across the country. In fact, none of the states in gold (and West Virginia, in red) kept pace with national trends in population growth. factsmaps.com/us-states-population-growth-rate-1950-2016/

This map of Florida by elevation reveals how much of Florida is less than 10 meters above sea level (in blue), including major coastal cities like Jacksonville and Tampa and all of densely populated south Florida. orig00.deviantart.net/ccef/f/2017/314/7/8/florida_elevation_map_by_atlas_v7x-dbte204.jpg

This winter has been unusual in that every state, including Hawaii, Florida, and Louisiana, has recorded snow this year. This map shows snowfall in the contiguous United States from the start of the winter through early January: www.sciencenewsforstudents.org/sites/default/files/scald-image/350_inline_snowmap.gif

Americans currently hold almost $13 trillion in personal debt (mortgage, student loans, credit card debt, car loan, etc.). This map breaks down average (self-reported) personal debt by state. howmuch.net/articles/americans-debt-by-state

This map looks at homeownership among millennials (those born between roughly 1977 and 1995) in major U.S. metropolitan areas. Millennial homeownership is considered by some to be a proxy for a region's economic vitality, but it's also clear (and hardly surprising) that there is an inverse relationship between average home prices (pink=high, blue=low) and the proportion of millennials who own homes. howmuch.net/articles/millennial-homeownership-large-cities

This interesting map considers the world's most isolated cities with a population over 100,000, based on their distance to the nearest city that also has a population of more than 100,000. The top two are American cities: Honolulu at #1 and Anchorage at #2. cityextremes.com/isolated.php

These GIFs show the steady progression in median ages in the Western Hemisphere and Europe from 1960 to 2060.  www.visualcapitalist.com/animation-rapidly-aging-western-world/

This map of the contiguous U.S., created by EarthArtAustralia based on satellite data, shows America's forests. mymodernmet.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/united-states-earth-map-trees.jpg

This map from the Library of Congress shows "judicially established Indian land areas" as of 1978, the year the Indian Claims Commission expired. The commission was created after WWII to thank Native Americans for their service during the war. Native peoples did not regain any lands lost over the prior three centuries, but the U.S. government did provide a monetary settlement based on this map. tile.loc.gov/image-services/iiif/service:gmd:gmd370:g3701:g3701e:ct008649/full/pct:12.5/0/default.jpg

This topological map looks at public debt by state: a pink ring on the outside means liabilities exceed assets (a blue ring means assets exceed liabilities); the size of the ring reflects the $$ value of the assets/liabilities. States with the worst debt ratio: New Jersey, Illinois, and Massachusetts. howmuch.net/articles/the-united-states-of-debt