Mapping Where People Don't Live

Intrepid mapmaker Nick Freeman released a map this week that shades all of the unoccupied territory in the United States.

“As of the 2010 census, the United States consists of 11,078,300 Census Blocks. Of them, 4,871,270 blocks totaling 4.61 million square kilometers were reported to have no population living inside them. Despite having a population of more than 310 million people, 47 percent of the USA remains unoccupied,” explains Freeman in his original post.

Freeman also makes the critical distinction between the two types of areas that are uninhabited:

• places where human habitation is physically restrictive or impossible, and
• places where human habitation is prohibited by social or legal convention.