Lab#7

The first map displays the Asian population in America. In the map, there are six levels of Asian's density, with darker color representing high density and light color representing low density. We can tell from the color on the map that there is a great population of Asian people distributing on the West Coast and North-East Coast of America, while the population in the central part of America is small, which matches my experience before. UCLA has a big amount of Asian students while one of my friend who studies in a university in central America told me Asian students take up a rather small amount of percentage in her school. As we can see from the map, Los Angeles is one of the cities with most Asians.

THe second map represents the distribution of Black people in America. Like the distribution of Asian people, most black people live on the east and west coast. The most direct indication from the map is that there is a very distinct difference of the black population in the north and south area. The black people in the south area are much more than those in the north area. which can be contributed to the historical reason. Some areas in the central north have rather small distribution and the black people in certain south area can take up to more than 80%.

The third map represents the distribution of some other races in America.Same as the rule in the maps above, the dark color represents the high concentration while the light color represents the low concentration. We can tell from the map that in the border areas adjacent to other countries, the concentration of other races is high. For example, in the West Coast, the Hispanic population is big, which may result from the geographic position. The overall concentration of the concentration, however, is not very high.

In conclusion, the maps above indicate the diverse population in America. The most diverse population distributes on the coast areas where immigrants take up a big amount of percentage. In my opinion, as time goes by, the population of certain races on the coast areas will scatter and in the near future we might not see such a distinct difference of population distribution in America.

In this lab, we use the American Lambert Conformal Conic projection in GIS to represent a customer-friendly map of population. This projection provides the viewers a direct visual sense of how different races be distribute in a certain area, with different colors. GIS is a powerful tool to summarize and visualize geographic data and convey useful information to the mass.