The Tabula America Index takes into account, population density, ethnicity, and education rate of each ElectionCord 100K District, and assigns each district a classification. The main purpose of this map in a political capacity is to make campaigning easier, as different demographics have different issues, get their news from different places, and even speak different languages. ElectionCord’s 100K Districts is a system in which each state is divided up into districts of roughly 100,000 people. This is done to properly divide areas into evenly populated areas, so they can be equally compared. They are also small enough to give specific communities/demographics their own districts, but big enough to where they’re not too overwhelming.
As mentioned, the Tabula America Index has three main components, population density, ethnicity, and education rate. Population density has three categories, urban, suburban, and rural. Urban is any district above 1,000 people per square kilometer (km²), suburban is any district between 201-999 people per km², and rural is anything under 200 people per km². There are six categories of ethnicity, those being majority White, Black, Latino, Asian, Native, and No Majority. Finally, education rate is determined by the education index, which takes high school, bachelor’s, and graduate’s degree rate into account. Any district that is over the 65th percentile is marked as educated, while any under are marked as non-educated.
The colors on the map are determined by each district’s Tabula America Index ID, of which there are 40 unique ID’s, and 17 colors. All majority White districts are one of 6 colors. If they are an educated ID, they are a shade of blue, and if they are a non-educated ID, they are a shade of white/gray. If they are a rural district, they are a lighter shade, urban is a darker shade, and suburban is somewhere in between. Majority Black and Latino ID’s each have three colors. As these ID’s have very few educated districts, their colors are only divided by population density. Black districts are shades of green, and Latino districts are shades of red. Like the White districts, the rural districts are lighter, and the urban districts are darker. There are only a couple of Native districts, but all are in light brown. Finally, Asian and No-Majority ID’s are divided into two colors each. Asian ID’s are yellow, and No-Majority districts are purple. If they are educated, they have a lighter shade, and if they are not educated, they have a darker shade.