US-Canada County Maps Thread

[RI]

I like to imagine the US and Canada as one country sometimes. Here are some maps of demographics, etc. (whatever I feel like making) that look at the North American subcontinent at the county/census division level. I think they're quite interesting and beautiful, and they show the continuity between the two countries for comparisons.

Population Density (in people/sq. miles):



Data for Canada is from the 2011 Census. Data for US is from 2012 population estimates.

[RI]

This is one of my favorites: a religion map. The data for Canada is from the 2001 Census, so it might be a bit old, but not too much. The data for the US is the most recent ARDA data with some adjustments I made: I took the adherents data and compared it to the ARIS survey of religious self-identification. I found that the data matched up nationally for Catholics and minor religions but not Protestants due to the about 14% of the population that identifies as generically Christian but doesn't attend any one specific church. So I adjusted for these "invisible Christians" to ARIS levels, and divided the new total adherents by the total adult population and fixed a couple other minor issues to get this map:



It's worth pointing out that "no religion" does not necessarily equal atheist or agnostic.

[Gass3268]

Both of these area really cool. Any more on the way?

[Miles]

Awesome.

I always love Acadiana on these maps!

[bgwah]

Cool maps. Hopefully you're using a map-making program and not Paint.

This is one of my favorites: a religion map. The data for Canada is from the 2001 Census, so it might be a bit old, but not too much. The data for the US is the most recent ARDA data with some adjustments I made: I took the adherents data and compared it to the ARIS survey of religious self-identification. I found that the data matched up nationally for Catholics and minor religions but not Protestants due to the about 14% of the population that identifies as generically Christian but doesn't attend any one specific church. So I adjusted for these "invisible Christians" to ARIS levels, and divided the new total adherents by the total adult population and fixed a couple other minor issues to get this map:

Would it be possible for you to post an example of your methodology? Maybe with a WA county (King?) so I can better follow along.

I'm surprised Franklin/Adams aren't Catholic

[Vosem]

Lake and Peninsula Borough in Alaska intrigues me. Why is it so overwhelmingly Orthodox? It's Wikipedia article says nothing on the topic. (And I thought there might be parts of, say, rural Saskatchewan which might be quite Orthodox as well).

[traininthedistance]

These are beautiful.

It's worth pointing out that "no religion" does not necessarily equal atheist or agnostic.

It's also true, though, that there are going to be plenty of people who claim a religion on this survey but don't practice, or even believe.  I guess this would be most common among Jews and Catholics, many of whom are nonbelievers but still identify with said faith on ethnicity/heritage grounds.

[Benj]

A lot of Native American counties seem to be very heavily Catholic. Is that really true?* I thought Protestant groups had the greatest penetration on most Reservations (though to my understanding the incidence of non-religion is also high, and a significant number, though not anywhere a majority, follow revivals of traditional beliefs).

*Less surprised about First Nations in Canada, as my understanding is local religion is heavily influenced by the French via the Metis.

[Hatman 🍁]

Awesome template.

One caveat about the Canadian religious figures, I believe StatsCan lumps Mormons into Protestants for some reason. Not that they have a majority in any census division, but it would affect the %'s perhaps in at least one CD in Alberta.

[minionofmidas]

A lot of Native American counties seem to be very heavily Catholic. Is that really true?

Yes, that is correct. Protestant missionaries usually quite failed to become a part of the place as it were unlike Catholic ones (where they existed early on) and usually converted only the assimilationists.

Orthodoxy among Aleuts and Yup'ik, of course, is a similar phenomenon. (All of Southwestern Alaska is 10-25% Orthodox. The only other over 3% Orthodox place according to the ARDA is Fairfax city, VA, which at 13% no doubt includes a parish serving much of NOVA - the old issue with ARDA data being population counted at place of worship rather than residence.)

[RI]

Yes, there are some rather cool maps coming. One in particular is requiring a long methodology but should be quite interesting.

Cool maps. Hopefully you're using a map-making program and not Paint.

This is one of my favorites: a religion map. The data for Canada is from the 2001 Census, so it might be a bit old, but not too much. The data for the US is the most recent ARDA data with some adjustments I made: I took the adherents data and compared it to the ARIS survey of religious self-identification. I found that the data matched up nationally for Catholics and minor religions but not Protestants due to the about 14% of the population that identifies as generically Christian but doesn't attend any one specific church. So I adjusted for these "invisible Christians" to ARIS levels, and divided the new total adherents by the total adult population and fixed a couple other minor issues to get this map:

Would it be possible for you to post an example of your methodology? Maybe with a WA county (King?) so I can better follow along.

I'm surprised Franklin/Adams aren't Catholic

Yes, I can do that later.

Lake and Peninsula Borough in Alaska intrigues me. Why is it so overwhelmingly Orthodox? It's Wikipedia article says nothing on the topic. (And I thought there might be parts of, say, rural Saskatchewan which might be quite Orthodox as well).

Russian Orthodox churches are still relatively strong along the south Alaskan coast from the 1700s when the Russian Empire colonized the region. I was surprised by how strongly the data showed them though.

Awesome template.

One caveat about the Canadian religious figures, I believe StatsCan lumps Mormons into Protestants for some reason. Not that they have a majority in any census division, but it would affect the %'s perhaps in at least one CD in Alberta.

Yeah, that frustrated me, but I haven't been able to find any geographic breakdown of Mormonism in Canada beyond "they're strong in Alberta."

[Hatman 🍁]

Mormons are strong along the Alberta-Montana border, the area is sometimes called the "Mormon Trail" (I might have this confused though). The area is probably the most conservative part of Canada. The town of Cardston I believe is their cultural centre.

[Sol]

Elliot County is confusing- It is that green county in Kentucky, right?

[RI]

Would it be possible for you to post an example of your methodology? Maybe with a WA county (King?) so I can better follow along.

I'm surprised Franklin/Adams aren't Catholic

One of the big reasons, though not the only one, that Franklin/Adams counties aren't Catholic is that they have really strong Mormon presences, which is part of the reason that Romney did so well there in the 2012 caucuses (Adams was Romney's best county) and in the surrounding counties. Since Washington our home state, I'll give the top 10 counties for some of the major groups by my methodology:

Protestants
1. Lincoln County - 58.37%
2. Wahkiakum County - 54.04%
3. Walla Walla County - 51.46% (Adventist haven of College Place)
4. Kitsap County - 50.67%
5. Cowlitz County - 50.49%
6. Columbia County - 50.11%
7. Island County - 50.00%
8. Whatcom County - 49.09% (Dutch Reformed territory near Lynden)
9. Pierce County - 49.08%
10. Chelan County - 48.81%

Catholics - Generally Hispanics and Natives
1. Garfield County - 43.77%
2. Yakima County - 36.19%
3. Douglas County - 29.05%
4. Chelan County - 25.36%
5. Grant County - 23.96%
6. San Juan County - 22.90% ()
7. Skagit County - 21.93%
8. Benton County - 20.75%
9. Ferry County - 19.77%
10. King County - 18.48%

Mormons - Eastern Washington mostly
1. Adams County - 19.19%
2. Franklin County - 13.94%
3. Grant County - 12.50%
4. Benton County - 11.19%
5. Columbia County - 8.92%
6. Asotin County - 8.70%
7. Lewis County - 7.58%
8. Spokane County - 6.91%
9. Clark County - 6.70%
10. Wahkiakum County - 6.64%

No Religion - Here be libertarians
1. Skamania County - 45.42%
2. Pend Oreille County - 44.34%
3. Island County - 41.04%
4. Jefferson County - 41.04%
5. Ferry County - 38.66%
6. Columbia County - 38.39%
7. Kitsap County - 38.38%
8. Mason County - 37.53%
9. Stevens County - 37.22%
10. Clallam County - 37.22%

To give a sample of my methodology for King County:
ARDA data
Protestants 316,359
Catholics 278,340
Mormons 56,985
Jews 14,925
Orthodox 12,257

Total Adherents: 726,669
Total Adult Population, 2011: 1,506,075

In order to estimate the number of unaccounted for Christians (as ARIS data, which is more complete, and Pew suggest that the true percentage of Protestants is ~48%, Catholics ~26%, None ~20%) I took (Adult Pop_i - Adherents_i)*((ARIS Protestants_Tot - ARDA Protestants_Tot)/(Adult Pop_Tot - Adherents_Tot)) = ~0.421*(Unallocated_i). Unfortunately, this assumes that all counties have the same proportion of "invisible Protestants", which isn't true, but I couldn't come up with a better way to do it, plus the errors sum out to even in the end for the entire country.

For King County:
Total Unallocated: 779,406
Appx 42% of this: 324,233 "invisible Protestants"

Total King County Protestants: 640,592 = 42.53% of Adult Population

All other groups reported in line with ARIS once this adjustment was made, so they were not adjusted from ARDA numbers.

[RI]

Racial/Ethnic Plurality:

[cinyc]

What's the island in the upper left inset?  Guam?

[RI]

What's the island in the upper left inset?  Guam?

Yes.

[RI]

Here's one that I did just for fun and because I thought the topic was interesting. I projected how Canada might have voted in the 2012 US Presidential election based solely upon demographic data. I first ran regressions for Obama and Romney vote shares using US data, created the formulae with the highest R²s (both ended up just over 0.7), then used that formula on the data for Canada's census divisions. No consideration for actual Canadian voting patterns was used. I could probably have gotten more accurate results if there was more of the same data across both countries, but I was somewhat limited in that way. If anyone is interested, I can provide the regressions.

Here is the map:



I ran an additional regression for turnout rates (also had about a 0.7 R²) and used this to tabulate how each province/territory voted in my model:

Alberta: Romney 56.75%, Obama 41.15%
British Columbia: Obama 64.74%, Romney 32.98%
Manitoba: Romney 49.56%, Obama 48.28%
New Brunswick: Obama 52.89%, Romney 45.13%
Newfoundland and Labrador: Romney 68.86%, Obama 28.98%
Northwest Territories: Romney 55.95%, Obama 41.96%
Nova Scotia: Romney 58.48%, Obama 39.40%
Nunavut: Obama 61.67%, Romney 36.30%
Ontario: Obama 55.74%, Romney 42.16%
Prince Edward Island: Romney 60.14%, Obama 37.77%
Quebec: Obama 87.30%, Romney 10.89%
Saskatchewan: Romney 61.60%, Obama 36.27%
Yukon Territory: Romney 60.72%, Obama 37.21%

Canada Total: Obama 62.52%, Romney 35.44%
Canada Excluding Quebec: Obama 52.99%, Romney 44.87%

I also created a secondary model where the French population didn't vote as a block but rather where they voted along their other demographic characteristics. In this version, Quebec voted Obama 50.70%, Romney 47.31% with Canada as a whole voting Obama 52.36%, Romney 45.55%.

Top Obama Census Divisions
1. Quebec, Quebec: Obama 96.58%, Romney 1.68%
2. Montreal, Quebec: Obama 94.72%, Romney 3.27%
3. Longueuil, Quebec: Obama 93.45%, Romney 4.71%
4. Sherbrooke, Quebec: Obama 93.25%, Romney 4.98%
5. Levis, Quebec: Obama 90.76%, Romney 7.54%
6. Francheville, Quebec: Obama 90.57%, Romney 7.69%
7. Joliette, Quebec: Obama 89.31%, Romney 8.95%
8. Gatineau, Quebec: Obama 88.75%, Romney 9.44%
9. La Rivière-du-Nord, Quebec: Obama 88.74%, Romney 9.52%
10. L'Assomption, Quebec: Obama 87.98%, Romney 10.31%

Top Non-Quebec Obama Census Divisions
1. Greater Vancouver, British Columbia: Obama 82.57%, Romney 15.08%
2. Toronto, Ontario: Obama 81.66%, Romney 16.15%
3. Madawaska County, New Brunswick: Obama 80.84%, Romney 17.39%
4. Gloucester County, New Brunswick: Obama 77.61%, Romney 20.59%
5. North East, Manitoba: Obama 73.55%, Romney 24.60%
6. Kent County, New Brunswick: Obama 70.84%, Romney 27.26%
7. Keewatin, Nunavut: Obama 70.59%, Romney 27.47%
8. Prescott-Russell County, Ontario: Obama 69.26%, Romney 28.92%
9. Peel, Ontario: Obama 68.79%, Romney 29.06%
10. Kitikmeot, Nunavut: Obama 66.26%, Romney 31.77%

Top French-minority White-majority Obama Census Divisions
1. Greater Vancouver, British Columbia: Obama 82.57%, Romney 15.08%
2. Toronto, Ontario: Obama 81.66%, Romney 16.15%
3. Ottawa, Ontario: Obama 61.73%, Romney 36.25%
4. Westmorland County, New Brunswick: Obama 60.69%, Romney 37.38%
5. Winnipeg, Ontario: Obama 60.66%, Romney 37.17%
6. York, Ontario: Obama 59.44%, Romney 38.44%
7. Capital, British Columbia: Obama 57.42%, Romney 40.42%
8. Victoria County, New Brunswick: Obama 54.69%, Romney 43.31%
9. Greater Sudbury, Ontario: Obama 53.82%, Romney 44.19%
10. Nanaimo, British Columbia: Obama 51.39%, Romney 46.45%

Top Romney Census Divisions
1. Division 16, Alberta: Romney 95.04%, Obama 2.93%
2. Division 10, Newfoundland and Labrador: Romney 85.17%, Obama 12.42%
3. Division 3, Newfoundland and Labrador: Romney 81.80%, Obama 15.94%
4. Division 9, Newfoundland and Labrador: Romney 80.00%, Obama 17.76%
5. Division 4, Alberta: Romney 79.45%, Obama 18.60%
6. Division 8, Newfoundland and Labrador: Romney 77.62%, Obama 20.17%
7. Northern Rockies, British Columbia: Romney 77.20%, Obama 20.48%
8. Division 7, Newfoundland and Labrador: Romney 77.08%, Obama 20.73%
9. Division 14, Alberta: Romney 75.17%, Obama 22.73%
10. Division 4, Saskatchewan: Romney 74.72%, Obama 23.19%

Top Romney Census Divisions with Over 50,000 votes
1. Thunder Bay District, Ontario: Romney 66.88%, Obama 30.99%
2. Division 2, Alberta: Romney 65.62%, Obama 32.36%
3. Division 1, Newfoundland and Labrador: Romney 62.64%, Obama 35.26%
4. Hastings County, Ontario: Romney 61.73%, Obama 36.20%
5. Simcoe County, Ontario: Romney 59.59%, Obama 38.36%
6. Division 6, Saskatchewan: Romney 58.61%, Obama 39.26%
7. Thompson-Nicola, British Columbia: Romney 57.05%, Obama 40.71%
8. Durham, Ontario: Romney 56.92%, Obama 41.03%
9. Wellington County, Ontario: Romney 56.30%, Obama 41.63%
10. Division 11, Saskatchewan: Romney 56.22%, Obama 41.65%

[Hatman 🍁]

lol

That map gave me a good laugh. There is some correlation to actual ideology, but some weird things stand out. Like, Newfoundland. Perhaps you need to add an industry category to your calculation so that Northern Ontario and Atlantic Canada aren't so Romney friendly. Vancouver Island also stands out- doesn't it have similar demographics as the Washington and Oregon coasts? It's one of the most left wing parts of Canada, so it's strange that it's under Romney.

[bgwah]

I think it's a cool map. I knew Earl would have said something snotty before clicking though.

[RI]

If I can find industry data, I'll update the model. The data needs to be the same for the US and Canada for it to work though. Atlantic Canada did seem odd, but the model had it being so Romney friendly due to low education, low incomes, low French population, low population densities, and a dearth of minorities.

[Hatman 🍁]

I think it's a cool map. I knew Earl would have said something snotty before clicking though.

Well, it is pretty funny. I do appreciate the hard work he put into it though. It's quite interesting. I'm not laughing at the methodology or the work put into it, but the humorous results that came up.

Anyways, why do you have Northern Ontario voting differently than Northern Minnesota? It's my impression that they are quite similar areas. I suppose once you factor for industry, it will flip. Southern Ontario looks pretty good, except for SDG (Stormont, Dundas & Glengarry), which IRL would of course go Obama (as would most of Canada), but would go Romney if Canada had historically been in the US.

Also, I noticed your map excludes CD #11 (Nunatsiavut) in NL, which is basically just Inuit- which I suppose you'd have going Obama. So, there should be some red in Labrador (not all of it though)

[Benj]

If I can find industry data, I'll update the model. The data needs to be the same for the US and Canada for it to work though. Atlantic Canada did seem odd, but the model had it being so Romney friendly due to low education, low incomes, low French population, low population densities, and a dearth of minorities.

Industry might work, but you could also do comparison of demographics within identifiable regions. The demographics of Atlantic Canada are basically identical to those of Maine (and similar demographics elsewhere in New England also vote solidly Democratic).

[RI]

If I can find industry data, I'll update the model. The data needs to be the same for the US and Canada for it to work though. Atlantic Canada did seem odd, but the model had it being so Romney friendly due to low education, low incomes, low French population, low population densities, and a dearth of minorities.

Industry might work, but you could also do comparison of demographics within identifiable regions. The demographics of Atlantic Canada are basically identical to those of Maine (and similar demographics elsewhere in New England also vote solidly Democratic).

I did this already, though with the Northeast not New England specifically.

Also, I noticed your map excludes CD #11 (Nunatsiavut) in NL, which is basically just Inuit- which I suppose you'd have going Obama. So, there should be some red in Labrador (not all of it though)

Unfortunately Division 11 didn't exist in 2001 when the latest religion data is from.

[MaxQue]

Before someone asks why the most recent date is from 2001, religion is only asked every 2 Censuses. It wasn't asked in 2006, it was asked in 2011, but Statistics Canada is always very slow to publish data.