Map of the Week: The Middle of Nowhere

From our friends at Visual Statistics:

We often claim to be in the middle of nowhere, but pinpointing the location of nowhere is easier said than done. I’ve attempted to show where, in the contiguous United States, would most appropriately be defined as nowhere, both on land and in the air.

I’ve used a database of all major roads, which includes interstate routes, U.S. routes, state routes, and other large roads/highways. The resulting maps have been scaled to show when you are close to a feature (somewhere) in blue, and when you are far away (nowhere) in red.

By land, the areas that are nowhere are central Idaho (mostly National Forest), NW Arizona (Grand Canyon), the intersection of Oregon, Idaho, and Nevada (nothing there), and NW Maine (a bunch of lakes). The Maine location would not be considered nowhere if I had included Canadian roads, as there are major roads extending from nearby Quebec City that come close to the border. Amazingly, there are some relatively large states (e.g. Ohio) that are completely dark blue, where you are never more than a few miles from the closest major road.

Vizual Statistix