Choropleth Map Write-up

The Choropleth map that I created shows the per capita number of limited service, or, fast food
restaurants in each of the U.S states. Personally, I believe that this is the best method of
representation for this particular data set. Without a comparing variable, the pure number of fast
food restaurants in a state would be of limited utility when displayed on a map, especially of this
nature. Furthermore when compared with a variable such as total area does not necessarily
represent correct information, because that in the real world the locations are not evenly
distributed across the total area of the state. While other variables such as comparing the number
of fast food restaurants to obesity in a state has too many hidden variables to account for and
likely would have little to no real correlation. Thus, I believe that comparing the number of
locations to population is the best method the construct a map detailing density of fast food
locations. Since the data is representing a variable per capita, and population and living space are
closely related I choose an equal area projection for the map due to the necessity of preserving
the integrity of the sizes of the states. I used the natural breaks method along with six categories
to represent the data numerically. I chose six categories to further delineate the data after finding
that when using only five intervals, much of the inland continental states were indistinct in color
while more than 0.00015 different in value; which I felt was statistically significant. I felt that
natural breaks method of classification was best for the data since, it could provide a more
accurate analysis over an even distribution that a set bounds would have done.