One map, one dot for all of the nearly 9 million people in the Garden State
New Jersey's more than 8.9 million residents sure can paint a pretty picture, but it takes more brush strokes than any one of them could muster.
It's no secret that New Jersey is one of the most diverse states in the union, but numbers and charts often don't illustrate exactly what that means very well.
So, over the past several weeks, NJ Advance Media developed a map that seeks to show this a little more clearly.
Our map shows every person that calls the Garden State home -- one dot for each resident (go ahead and count).
SEE THE MAP: Click here to view our map of every person in N.J.
The result resembles a watercolor painting, showing just how and where the state's burgeoning diversity is springing from.
Towns like Jersey City and Union in Union County -- two of the most culturally and racially diverse towns in the state -- look like colored television static, with a near even distribution of each racial category.
The Route 1 and 9 corridor shimmers green, reflecting the the vast number of immigrants who have settled in the region from Asia. Elizabeth and Perth Amboy, meanwhile, glow purple, as each have become major enclaves for the Hispanic community in recent decades.
But the map also shows that diversity and integration are not always one in the same in the Garden State.
Newark remains one of the more segregated cities in the state, with its large African-American population living almost entirely separate from its Hispanic and white populations. The map turns sharply from orange to blue around Camden, where the difference between white and black communities seems almost like it has a distinct boundary.
In Lakewood, the fastest growing municipality in the state, the town's exploding and largely white Jewish population appears to have settled in an entirely different portion of town than the Hispanic and African American populations.
The map was developed using a cartographic interpretation of the 2010 decennial Census -- the most robust dataset available to analyze the changing tides of population in the United States.
The data was derived from Census race data parsed down to the Census block level, which typically span only a few municipal blocks in most areas. We then employed a script that took those counts, created a dot for each person of each race within each Census block, and scattered them randomly throughout their representative geography.
Once plotted on a map and colored, the result is the most detailed look at race in New Jersey possible with information available today. Users can zoom out for a wide view of the state, or zoom all the way into their own neighborhood to see the racial makeup of their own community.
Notes about this map: The map below does not show the exact locations of every single person in New Jersey. Since the dots are randomly scattered over small areas, it may appear that some people are living in cemeteries or small lakes. To our knowledge, this is not the case.
Every person in N.J., mapped by race
Use the zoom controls on the bottom right or double-click/tap to zoom in on the map. A key is provided on the bottom.
Stephen Stirling may be reached at sstirling@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @sstirling. Find him on Facebook.