GEOG 121 Project 5:
Census Thematic Mapping

This reference map depicts my hometown of Elizabethtown, PA. My home is located in census block 2009, right near the "er" in the word "Lancaster." Technically, I live in Mount Joy Township, one of two townships that surrounds the borough of Elizabethtown. SR 283 is a four-lane highway that serves as the east border of the 'urban area' and this is logical because population is not nearly as dense east of the highway as it is west. Also, the odd-shaped block surrounding Hampden Road must have been revised because the road is a dead-end and the neighborhoods surrounding it are not accessible from that road.
This map was created from TIGER/line data, which is the database that the Census Bureau created to make maps to help census enumerators find their way around.
The map scale is 1:17,630.6'. (as calculated below)
 

(5280ft)(1.6miles)(12inches)
                         ----------------------------------    =     17,630.6
(1 mile)(5.75inches)(1 foot)

Thematic Map

This is a chloropleth map of my home county, Lancaster County, PA.  The large polygons represent townships, the main political divisions in Pennsylvania counties.  The smaller, more irregular-shaped polygons represent boroughs and cities.  My hometown, Elizabethtown, is the upper-most town in the left-hand corner.  The spatial data (roads, boundaries, hydrography) is obtained from TIGER/line data, and the attribute data is obtained from Census 2000 data. The data above is classified in seven natural breaks, which shows a visible variety of data for Lancaster County.  This was used instead of the other methods, equal interval classification and quantile classification.

The scale of this map is 1:440,765.

(5280ft)(40miles)(12inches)
                         ----------------------------------    =     440,765
(1 mile)(5.75inches)(1 foot)

I decided to choose the data for average household size, because I believe that the areas that are primarily farmland have a larger average household size.  This includes the Amish, who typically have larger families all living on the same property.  The townships that are primarily farmhouses are represented by the dark red polygons.  These are located east of Lancaster, which is an area dominated by population of Amish families. Many young couples and single people live in the areas west and southwest of Lancaster, and this can account for the smaller average household size that is shown by the yellow shading.  Also, towns and cities tend to have a smaller average household size because housing downtown consists primarily of townhouses and apartments.