Mapped: The shockingly empty US

Graphic: Mapsbynik.com

When the US does its census, the smallest measurement unit it goes by is the “block.” In a city, this is what you would think it is: a city block. In the country, the size is more arbitrary. But there are a grand total of 11,078,300 census blocks in the United States…and 4,871,270 of them are totally uninhabited.

That’s what the map above (by the website mapsbynik) shows. Any blocks with even a single person living in them are shaded white, while those in green have no human residents.

The areas that are empty are about what you’d expect: the Maine woods, the mountains and deserts of the West, gigantic portions of Alaska, etc. But that doesn’t make this map any less incredible. You can go one of two ways: either, “There are that many people in the US?” or, “There’s that much wilderness left?” For the antisocial, nomadic, Tyler Durden-wannabes out there, this is basically a where-to-live guide.

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