A major reason why the United States has held such a special place on the world stage is due to our extraordinary belief in the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for all. Our constitutional commitment to freedom beats behind our national anthem, which renews its promise to be “the land of the free and home of the brave” every time it is sung. This unforgettable pledge is what keeps the flame alight on the torch of our Lady Liberty, who was often the first to welcome returning citizens, immigrants, and foreign visitors when they traveled to New York by boat.
A fascinating GIS project, “American Panorama” from the University of Richmond’s Digital Scholarship Lab, was recently selected as one of the top tech innovators in 2016 by the Chronicle of Higher Education. Using demographic data to create digital maps of the United States, the project foregrounds the significant role of migration and immigration in American history.
Their most popular map is titled “Foreign-Born Population”. After collecting US Census data from 1850-2010, researchers mapped the data using GIS to illustrate how immigration has shaped our land and fostered strong intercultural networks over the last 150 years. Interestingly, the map shows that since 2010, there have been 38,449,761 foreign-born individuals in our country. Unsurprisingly, then, the map’s tagline proudly reads: “A Nation of Overlapping Diasporas”.
These data-driven digital maps testify to the astounding potential of GIS to deepen our understanding of topics like national development by visualizing statistical information. Projects like “American Panorama” earn their scholarly significance because they make the invisible visible: like any good teacher, they reveal that there is always more to what we thought we already knew.