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Land use in the US
(lemmy.ml)
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this post was submitted on 23 Jul 2023
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This is a weird ass pie chart using the US map as a base right? If I am correct then this is a terrible way to display this data.
i really do not understand how anyone can be confused by this, obviously it's not a geographical map because new mexico does not contain the sum total of all american railways..
It's a fine graph that gives an intuitive sense for how much area is used for each thing.
Yeah and Michigan doesn't contain all the idle/fallow land in the US but the problem is some people look at this and think that Michigan contains the most idle/fallow land in the US which is why it was used to represent that portion of the data.
I feel like there is a single sentence or phrase that could be written above the or near the graphic which would make it clear but I honestly don't know what it is.
"land use amount is to scale, location is not"
Still seems kind of clunky, and given all the misunderstanding ITT it might do more harm than good.