Many people know that some states, such as Alaska and Wyoming, have large areas and few people, others, like New Jersey, have small areas and a larger population, and others, such as California and Texas, are big in both area and population. As with nations, the states can be compared with a single figure in which each rectangle represents state area (rectangle height), state population density (rectangle width), and state population (rectangle area).
I've divided the country into 8 geographical regions (see color-coded map). All the regions are very roughly the same area, as shown by the vertical extent of the stack of rectangles representing each region.
By far the highest population density is in the states of the "Northeastern Megalopolis" stretching from Washington DC to Massachusetts. Other urban regions have similar population densities, but are located in states such as California or Illinois whose average population density is lowered by large areas with few people. Only California and some of the states of the Southeast have comparable population densities. While California and Texas are both large states with large populations, we can see that Texas is much bigger (in area) and California is much more densely populated. The other states on the west coast have relatively small population densities. The states of the plains, desert, and mountain zones generally have population densities of about 20 people/square kilometer. Alaska, which by itself is over an eighth of the country's area, is barely inhabited.Another way of looking at the population distribution is that 1/3 live in the Northeast/Great Lakes eighth of the land, 1/3 live in the South and Gulf quarter of the land, around 1/8 live in California, and the remaining 1/5 of the population lives in states occupying over half the area of the country.
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Last modified: 25 Jun 2014