This is the African American population percentage map. From a historical perspective, this map shows a denser population of Blacks in what used to be the Cotton Belt back in the 19th century. It is surprising the number of counties that have no black residents; most of these are in the northern plains. The greater population density outside of the southern states are found in counties that contain major cities.

This Asian Population Percentage Map shows that a large majority of the Asians in this country live in California and New York. Also tied historically, Asians first arrived to this country through San Francisco and others through New York City. I like to point out that Orange County (where I live) is ranked 15 most populated by Asians. Especially in Irvine, where good school and a suburban landscape attract immigrants.

Well, I'm going to go ahead and gamble many of these races are of Hispanic decent, with most of the western states populated by Mexicans and Florida by Cubans/Caribbean states. It is interesting how the deeper one goes into the country, there is less diversity of races, evident throughout all three maps. This is a wonderful country, and I'm proud to say I'm an immigrant. Working with GIS has been both instructional and enlightening. I like how easy it is to work with GIS platforms and how easy it is to integrate and manipulate information with these programs. It is a very useful tool, and as a hopeful Civil Engineer I am glad I can include this on my resume.

I selected the San Francisco Bay Area because of its contrast in elevation. Its extent is from 38.064166666 to 37.5897222215 North and from -122.685833335 to -121.831111112 West. The Spatial reference is from GCS North American 1983.

Conformal Projections- 
The Two Conformal Projections I picked are the Mercator and the Stereographic. The Mercator was very useful in nautical travel because it accurately represented rhumb lines. But the scale increases as you leave the equator. The stereographic projection is a type of azimuthal projection that preserves angles (as all conformal projections do).

 Equal Area Projections-
Sinusoidal projection maintains equal area despite its conformal distortion (that's why the projection is also known as the Mercator equal area projection). The Mollweide is a pseudocylindrical projection with the equator and meridian meeting in right angles.

Equidistant Projections-
The Plate Carree is a relatively simple and common projection for it forms a rectangular grid with equal spacing. Though not very useful for navigation, it has been widely adopted for its simplicity and easy-to-use characteristics. The Azimuthal Equidistant is useful in that all measurements from the center of the map are accurate, but only from the center. Often the center are the poles or the intersection of the equator and prime meridian.










Depicting a 3 dimensional ellipsoid on a flat surface will always suffer from some distortions or obstacles. With the emergence of GPS and satellite imaging many of these maps have grown obsolete. Because each projection must sacrifice some aspects of its depiction to accurately represent another, there cannot be one universally useful map. They are at the mercy of the user's needs.

Map projections have been a necessity ever since man decided to leave his cave. They have provided us with guidance in the most trying of times, and have lead us to discoveries of new worlds. Much of this planet has been stepped on (not all, but most) and maps have greatly evolved since the dawn of time. Though maps continue to be used everyday, they are slowly losing their market and usefulness with the everyday user.

What is replacing them? Smartphones. Ability to conjure a map on our handheld device has eliminated the need to carry a map with us. Paths are no longer found by intuition but by computer programs.

The majority of the population has been exposed to maps, but whether they have been exposed to all types of maps is not a question or debate. There is no need for the majority of the population to identify the difference between projections, and they cant be expected to understand the differences and advantages of each.

I must say, my experience with ArcMap was more pleasant than I anticipated. The tutorial was very thorough and simple enough to follow. I was frustrated at first because I could not remote access the computer lab so I worked in the lab itself. Except for the one hiccup that happened when I first saved the document, it was smooth sailing from there on. I really like ingenuity and straightforwardness of the program ad I hope to develop more skills with this. 

This is a very useful tool, especially for civil engineers (my future aspiration). This program has plenty of useful applications for research and construction. I have no knowledge of the history of this program, but seeing as I used the tenth version, it has probably been around for some years now. I see this as a very successful product but I don't know enough about its competition to give my opinion that much importance.

With what I know, one of the pitfalls for this program might be the learning curve. Much like most Office or desktop programs, it is the success of the initial exposure that determines if the user will pursue mastering it. It is simple, but it has a multitude of applications that might turn the feeble or non-expert away. I compare this to excel. Most people can use it simply, make tables and simple spreadsheets without ever exploring its full capabilities, and then there will be the few that depend on it and succeed in mastering it.

This program (like excel) has a lot of potential. A lot of use, but only in specific fields. Its market is not as big as compared to other computer programs (eg. Word, power point) so it might not fare well in the business side. GIS are very useful in our daily lives for demographic studies and research, and we need to continue on improving these systems to better study human population and the world we populate.