Environment

GASEOUS AMERICA

What if each of the United States were as big as its population? To create such a map, or cartogram, University of Michigan physicist Mark Newman developed a computer program that represents people as gas particles. The populations diffuse evenly, expanding or contracting state borders accordingly.  

Graphic by Michael T. Gastner and M.E.J. Newman. Courtesy of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Vol. 101, No. 20, 7493-7840. Copyright 2004, National Academy of Sciences, U.S.A.

deflated MASSES

On the cartogram, the least populous state is dwarfed by the tiniest physical one: Wyoming has 60 times the acreage of Rhode Island but only half the residents.