O ne of the lofty goals which Dan Miller of Points with a Crew wants to accomplish is having been to every one of the 3,143 counties in the United States — but I wonder if he knew that approximately half the population of the United States resides in only 146 of those counties?
Half of the Population of the United States Lives in 146 Counties
Using data from the United States Census, Walter Hickey and Joe Weisenthal figured out that statistic and listed all 146 counties in this article for Business Insider — or, technically, 145 counties plus the District of Columbia, which is not a county.
Bonus: A Great Custom Mapping Tool You Can Use
During my research, I stumbled upon a tool called Mapchart.net, which I used to fill the counties in red in the map you see at the top of this article. With it, you can create your own custom map of the world, continents, countries, territories, states, counties and more with colors and descriptions of your choice. I found it to be rather accurate and fairly easy to use.
Here is the map again so that you may click on it for an enlarged view.
You can also visit the counties view of a map of the United States at mapchart.net and hover your cursor over each county to find out the specific name of each county.
Summary
I have always been interested — and mesmerized — with maps of all types; so I was naturally drawn to the information used in this article.
One personal statistic I have learned from this article is that in my entire life, I have never lived outside of the 146 counties highlighted on the map.
Having been to every one of the 3,143 counties in the United States does not interest me personally as a travel goal, as I am having a difficult enough time trying to have been in every country on every continent in the world. I have already been to all 50 states in the United States, though.
Map created with mapchart.net.
