Data Visualization

Chart: The Population Rank of Every U.S. State Over 100 Years

Published

2 years ago

February 7, 2018

Jeff Desjardins

The Population Rank of Every U.S. State Over 100 Years

The Population Rank of Every U.S. State Over 100 Years

“Go west, young man, and grow up with the country.”

Popularized by Horace Greeley, the editor of the New-York Tribune, these words formed one of the great catchphrases at the height of the Manifest Destiny era in the 19th century.

Although that period is still a few chapters back in the history books, the fact is the West Coast is still relatively new today. Los Angeles was only incorporated in 1850, Portland in 1851, and Seattle in 1869.

And throughout the 20th century – Americans were moving westward in droves, ultimately culminating in California taking over the title of the most populous state in the union by the year 1960.

Population Rank by State

Today’s visualization is a bump chart from Aaron Penne, and it shows the population rank of U.S. states and D.C. over the timeframe of a century (1917-2017) using data from the U.S. Census Bureau.

When a state passes another in population in a given year, it “bumps” the other state from that place in the ranking. Big movers are also highlighted in orange (up) and black (down) on the graph.

Let’s look at the numbers for the first year on the graph, which is 1917:

Rank	State	Population (1917)
#1	New York	9,993,000
#2	Pennsylvania	8,578,000
#3	Illinois	6,313,000
#4	Ohio	5,510,000
#5	Texas	4,563,000
#6	Massachusetts	3,738,000
#7	Missouri	3,470,000
#8	Michigan	3,451,000
#9	California	3,171,000
#10	New Jersey	2,976,000
#11	Indiana	2,910,000
#12	Georgia	2,885,000
#13	Wisconsin	2,587,000
#14	North Carolina	2,546,000
#15	Kentucky	2,421,000
#16	Iowa	2,382,000
#17	Alabama	2,361,000
#18	Tennessee	2,331,000
#19	Minnesota	2,329,000
#20	Virginia	2,313,000
#21	Oklahoma	1,960,000
#22	Mississippi	1,820,000
#23	Lousiana	1,795,000
#24	Kansas	1,748,000
#25	Arkansas	1,737,000
#26	South Carolina	1,675,000
#27	West Virginia	1,439,000
#28	Maryland	1,428,000
#29	Connecticut	1,327,000
#30	Washington	1,287,000
#31	Nebraska	1,285,000
#32	Colorado	910,000
#33	Florida	895,000
#34	Maine	777,000
#35	Oregon	763,000
#36	North Dakota	661,000
#37	Rhode Island	606,000
#38	South Dakota	599,000
#39	Montana	505,000
#40	New Hampshire	447,000
#41	Utah	444,000
#42	Idaho	413,000
#43	District of Columbia	385,000
#44	Vermont	372,000
#45	New Mexico	361,000
#46	Arizona	311,000
#47	Delaware	222,000
#48	Wyoming	186,000
#49	Nevada	81,000

New York led the pack with just short of 10 million people, which made up 10% of the population of the country as a whole. Meanwhile, California had only 3.2 million people – and amazingly, Nevada only had 81,000 people in 1917.

Now let’s jump forward 50 years to 1967, when the U.S. population was closer to 200 million.

Rank	State	Population (1967)
#1	California	19,176,000
#2	New York	17,935,000
#3	Pennsylvania	11,681,000
#4	Illinois	10,947,000
#5	Texas	10,599,000
#6	Ohio	10,414,000
#7	Michigan	8,630,000
#8	New Jersey	6,928,000
#9	Florida	6,242,000
#10	Massachusetts	5,594,000
#11	Indiana	5,053,000
#12	North Carolina	4,952,000
#13	Missouri	4,539,000
#14	Virginia	4,508,000
#15	Georgia	4,408,000
#16	Wisconsin	4,303,000
#17	Tennessee	3,859,000
#18	Maryland	3,757,000
#19	Minnesota	3,659,000
#20	Louisiana	3,581,000
#21	Alabama	3,458,000
#22	Washington	3,174,000
#23	Kentucky	3,172,000
#24	Connecticut	2,935,000
#25	Iowa	2,793,000
#26	South Carolina	2,533,000
#27	Oklahoma	2,489,000
#28	Mississippi	2,228,000
#29	Kansas	2,197,000
#30	Colorado	2,053,000
#31	Oregon	1,979,000
#32	Arkansas	1,901,000
#33	West Virginia	1,769,000
#34	Arizona	1,646,000
#35	Nebraska	1,457,000
#36	Utah	1,019,000
#37	Maine	1,004,000
#38	New Mexico	1,000,000
#39	Rhode Island	909,000
#40	District of Columbia	791,000
#41	Hawaii	723,000
#42	Montana	701,000
#43	New Hampshire	697,000
#44	Idaho	688,000
#45	South Dakota	671,000
#46	North Dakota	626,000
#47	Delaware	525,000
#48	Nevada	449,000
#49	Vermont	423,000
#50	Wyoming	322,000
#51	Alaska	278,000

In just half of a century, California gained 16 million people, and jumped to the #1 spot in the process. That’s a 504% increase over its 1917 population.

The Largest Increases in Population

For a final table data, we’ll show you the 2017 state populations compared to the 1917 state populations.

The table is sorted by the percentage increase over the course of that 100 years of time.

Rank	State	Population (1917)	Population (2017)	% Increase
#1	Nevada	81,000	2,998,039	3,601%
#2	Florida	895,000	20,984,400	2,245%
#3	Arizona	311,000	7,016,270	2,156%
#4	California	3,171,000	39,536,653	1,147%
#5	Utah	444,000	3,101,833	599%
#6	Texas	4,563,000	28,304,596	520%
#7	Colorado	910,000	5,607,154	516%
#8	New Mexico	361,000	2,088,070	478%
#9	Washington	1,287,000	7,405,743	475%
#10	Oregon	763,000	4,142,776	443%
#11	Delaware	222,000	961,939	333%
#12	Maryland	1,428,000	6,052,177	324%
#13	Idaho	413,000	1,716,943	316%
#14	North Carolina	2,546,000	10,273,419	304%
#15	Virginia	2,313,000	8,470,020	266%
#16	Georgia	2,885,000	10,429,379	262%
#17	Wyoming	186,000	579,315	211%
#18	New Jersey	2,976,000	9,005,644	203%
#19	New Hampshire	447,000	1,342,795	200%
#20	South Carolina	1,675,000	5,024,369	200%
#21	Michigan	3,451,000	9,962,311	189%
#22	Tennessee	2,331,000	6,715,984	188%
#23	Connecticut	1,327,000	3,588,184	170%
#24	Lousiana	1,795,000	4,684,333	161%
#25	Minnesota	2,329,000	5,576,606	139%
#26	Indiana	2,910,000	6,666,818	129%
#27	Wisconsin	2,587,000	5,795,483	124%
#28	Ohio	5,510,000	11,658,609	112%
#29	Montana	505,000	1,050,493	108%
#30	Alabama	2,361,000	4,874,747	106%
#31	Illinois	6,313,000	12,802,023	103%
#32	Oklahoma	1,960,000	3,930,864	101%
#33	New York	9,993,000	19,849,399	99%
#34	Kentucky	2,421,000	4,454,189	84%
#35	Massachusetts	3,738,000	6,859,819	84%
#36	District of Columbia	385,000	693,972	80%
#37	Missouri	3,470,000	6,113,532	76%
#38	Rhode Island	606,000	1,059,639	75%
#39	Arkansas	1,737,000	3,004,279	73%
#40	Maine	777,000	1,335,907	72%
#41	Vermont	372,000	623,657	68%
#42	Kansas	1,748,000	2,913,123	67%
#43	Mississippi	1,820,000	2,984,100	64%
#44	Nebraska	1,285,000	1,920,076	49%
#45	Pennsylvania	8,578,000	12,805,537	49%
#46	South Dakota	599,000	869,666	45%
#47	Iowa	2,382,000	3,145,711	32%
#48	West Virginia	1,439,000	1,815,857	26%
#49	North Dakota	661,000	755,393	14%
#50	Alaska		739,795	n/a
#51	Hawaii		1,427,538	n/a

Not surprisingly, Nevada takes the cake with a 3,601% gain, going from 81,000 people to today’s 2,998,039.

Meanwhile, North Dakota had the smallest gain – it only added 14% more people over a whole century of time.

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Data Visualization

Exploring the Expanse: 30 Years of Hubble Discoveries

For 30 years, the Hubble Space telescope has been our eye into outer space. This stunning map looks at 550,000 observations made between 1990-2019.

Published

1 month ago

April 24, 2020

Iman Ghosh

Exploring the Expanse: 30 Years of Hubble Discoveries

View the full-size version of the infographic by clicking here.

We’ve been fascinated by space for centuries, but telescopes truly opened our eyes to what lies beyond our frontiers.

For 30 years, the Hubble Space Telescope has been our companion in helping us understand outer space, paving the way for many important scientific discoveries in the process.

A Window to the Universe

Hubble launched on Apr 24, 1990 and has been in our orbit ever since. However, it had something of a shaky start. Due to an error in its primary mirror, it returned many wobbly and blurry images—until a servicing mission in December 1993 fixed the issue.

Today’s incredible map was created by Nadieh Bremer of Visual Cinnamon, for the scientific journal Physics Today. It incorporates over 550,000 scientific observations, to show the diverse objects captured by Hubble between 1990-2019.

Certain constellations have been included to help place these findings, many of which are also visible to the naked eye. Here are the main color-coded categories found on the map:

Yellow: Star/ Stellar cluster
Example: V838 Monocerotis, which includes a red star and a light echo.
Red: Galaxy/ Clusters of galaxies
Example: Spiral galaxy M81, half the size of the Milky Way.
Green: Interstellar medium (ISM)
Example: Eagle Nebula, a majestic spire of cosmic dust and gas, resembling pillars and spanning 4-5 light years.
Blue: Solar System
Example: Jupiter’s Great Red Spot, a high-pressure storm in the planet’s atmosphere.
Pink: Calibration/Unidentified (e.g. Hubble Deep Field surveys)
Example: Ultra Deep Field, which captured a view of 10,000 galaxies over 11 days—some which date back to the early billion years of the universe.

NASA considers the Hubble telescope the “most significant advance in astronomy since Galileo’s telescope” and not without good reason—its total observations top 1.3 million.

Hubble Observations, by Category

The journey doesn’t end there, either. Bremer also looked at the frequency of Hubble observations that occurred within each of these categories, ranging from 1,000-20,000.

Hubble Observation by Category

Source: Physics Today

Each category encompasses multiple distinctive descriptions. For example, galaxies can be broken down further into whether they are spiral, nuclear, elliptical-shaped and much more.

Hubble’s Growing Legacy

The images sent back by Hubble over these three decades are not just for aesthetic purposes. The telescope is also responsible for immense contributions to the astronomy field: close to 13,000 scientific papers have used Hubble as a source to date.

The biggest scientific breakthrough thus far? The realization that our universe is expanding at an accelerating rate—thanks to a force called dark energy.

Hubble really did open up the whole universe to us in a way that nothing else did.

—Colleen Hartman, Former Deputy Center Director, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

It’s clear that Hubble already has an impressive legacy, and it’s not expected to be retired until at least the year 2025. Soon, it will be joining forces with the new James Webb Space Telescope, to be launched in March 2021. For the next generation of space enthusiasts, their eyes to the skies may well be the Webb instead.

For the true data viz nerds among us, here is an in-depth blog post detailing the sky map’s creation from scratch.

Base Metals

All the World’s Metals and Minerals in One Visualization

This massive infographic reveals the dramatic scale of 2019 non-fuel mineral global production.

Published

3 months ago

March 1, 2020

Nicholas LePan

All the World’s Metals and Minerals in One Visualization

We live in a material world, in that we rely on materials to make our lives better. Without even realizing it, humans consume enormous amounts of metals and minerals with every convenient food package, impressive building, and technological innovation.

Every year, the United States Geological Service (USGS) publishes commodity summaries outlining global mining statistics for over 90 individual minerals and materials. Today’s infographic visualizes the data to reveal the dramatic scale of 2019 non-fuel mineral production.

Read all the way to the bottom; the data will surprise you.

Non-Fuel Minerals: USGS Methodology

A wide variety of minerals can be classified as “non-fuel”, including precious metals, base metals, industrial minerals, and materials used for construction.

Non-fuel minerals are those not used for fuel, such as oil, natural gas and coal. Once non-fuel minerals are used up, there is no replacing them. However, many can be recycled continuously.

The USGS tracked both refinery and mine production of these various minerals. This means that some minerals are the essential ingredients for others on the list. For example, iron ore is critical for steel production, and bauxite ore gets refined into aluminum.

Top 10 Minerals and Metals by Production

Sand and gravel are at the top of the list of non-fuel mineral production.

As these materials are the basic components for the manufacturing of concrete, roads, and buildings, it’s not surprising they take the lead.

Rank	Metal/Mineral	2019 Production (millions of metric tons)
#1	Sand and Gravel	50,000
#2	Cement	4,100
#3	Iron and Steel	3,200
#4	Iron Ore	2,500
#5	Bauxite	500
#6	Lime	430
#7	Salt	293
#8	Phosphate Rock	240
#9	Nitrogen	150
#10	Gypsum	140

These materials fertilize the food we eat, and they also form the structures we live in and the roads we drive on. They are the bones of the global economy.

Let’s dive into some more specific categories covered on the infographic.

Base Metals

While cement, sand, and gravel may be the bones of global infrastructure, base metals are its lifeblood. Their consumption is an important indicator of the overall health of an economy.

Base metals are non-ferrous, meaning they contain no iron. They are often more abundant in nature and sometimes easier to mine, so their prices are generally lower than precious metals.

Rank	Base Metal	2019 Production (millions of metric tons)
#1	Aluminum	64.0
#2	Copper	20.0
#3	Zinc	13.0
#4	Lead	4.5
#5	Nickel	2.7
#6	Tin	0.3

Base metals are also the critical materials that will help to deliver a green and renewable future. The electrification of everything will require vast amounts of base metals to make everything from batteries to solar cells work.

Precious Metals

Gold and precious metals grab the headlines because of their rarity ⁠— and their production shows just how rare they are.

Rank	Precious Metal	2019 Production (metric tons)
#1	Silver	27,000
#2	Gold	3,300
#3	Palladium	210
#4	Platinum	180

While metals form the structure and veins of the global economy, ultimately it is humans and animals that make the flesh of the world, driving consumption patterns.

A Material World: A Perspective on Scale

The global economy’s appetite for materials has quadrupled since 1970, faster than the population, which only doubled. On average, each human uses more than 13 metric tons of materials per year.

In 2017, it’s estimated that humans consumed 100.6B metric tons of material in total. Half of the total comprises sand, clay, gravel, and cement used for building, along with the other minerals mined to produce fertilizer. Coal, oil, and gas make up 15% of the total, while metal makes up 10%. The final quarter are plants and trees used for food and fuel.