Many of us in the U.S. take pride in our home state or the state in which we currently reside. After all, we’re not likely to move to a state we absolutely despise unless a job opportunity outweighs the negatives. And trust us, each state certainly has its negatives. From preventable hospitalizations and the smallest increase in newborn life expectancy to dismal unemployment rates and a future $223 million going towards preventing rising sea level damage, we’re shining a light on some of the darkest state statistics. The map helped us identify regions of the U.S. with the worst health as well as which side of the nation, East versus West, faces similar issues.

View The Worst Statistic About Your State in a full screen map

Take a look at the map above for the different categories of negative state statistics including natural disasters, environmental negatives, and crime levels. Then read on for the fascinating trends you can pull from the data.

The South Could Be Healthier

Using the map grouping feature to group by health, it’s clear the South’s health struggles rise to the top. Alabama, Arkansas, Kentucky, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and West Virginia all face health-related concerns serious enough to be considered the worst fact about these Southern states.

State	Details
Alabama	Alabama has fewer than 85 mental health providers per 100,000 people, the least of any state and well below the national average of 212.8 mental health providers per 100,000 people.
Arkansas	Nearly a quarter of state adults report having fair or poor health, compared to 16.0% of Americans.
Kentucky	Preventable hospitalizations are a sign of poor health habits and a suboptimal medical system. Kentucky has an estimated 76.56 preventable hospitalizations per 100,000 Medicare enrollees, the highest of any state.
Oklahoma	Between 1980 and 2014, life expectancy at birth improved by only 3.4 years in Oklahoma, the smallest improvement of any state and less than half the 7.2 year national increase.
South Carolina	Just 54.2% of South Carolina residents have access to places for physical activity like park parks and recreation centers, the smallest share of any state.
Tennessee	According to the CDC, 9.8% of Tennessee adults have a major cardiovascular disease of some kind, compared to the national prevalence of 6.9%.
Texas	In Texas, 17.3% of the population lacks health insurance, the highest uninsured rate of any state.
West Virginia	West Virginia’s 35.5% adult obesity rate is the highest of any state. The national obesity rate is 28.0%.

Unhealthy Outliers: South Dakota and Montana

South Dakota and Montana also make an appearance on the map when you group by health issues. South Dakota’s government spent just $1,022 per capita on health in the most recent fiscal year, the lowest of any U.S. state. In fact, New Mexico spends over three times as much as South Dakota on health. Plus, the national average for state health spending is $1,884 per capita.

As for Montana, the state has the highest suicide rate of any state at 26 incidents per 100,000 people. And while rising suicide rates aren’t new, between 1999 and 2016 Montana saw a 38% increase in suicides. To put it in perspective, the national average increased by 25%. The National Alliance on Mental Montana’s executive director suspects the state’s high suicide rate is because of Montana’s particular residential makeup. Many gun owners, Native Americans, and military veterans call Montana home. Unfortunately, these folks are at high risk of suicide. Additionally, as is the case in Alabama, Montana doesn’t have enough mental health care providers for their population and Montana recently faced further mental-health budget cuts. This seems counterintuitive since Montana’s residential makeup and ruralness resulting in geographic isolation, high rate of heavy alcohol consumption, and lack of daylight during the winter are all linked to depression.

Financial Woes of the Eastern United States

It appears that more than other region, the Eastern United States struggles financially. If you group the map by finances, the right side of the nation including Connecticut, Illinois, Indiana, Mississippi, New York, and Virginia all light up with a financial-related issue. For example, both Connecticut and Illinois struggle with debt. The average credit card debt in Connecticut is $7,258, the highest of any of the mainland U.S. states. Illinois also has a history of debt. In fact, Illinois’s debt is so serious that the state itself is at risk of a financial crisis or even bankruptcy. In its most recent fiscal year, the state had $244.9 billion in obligations and just $28.8 billion in assets.

When it comes to real estate, Indiana has something in common with the only non-Eastern state struggling financially: Hawaii. The cost of living in Hawaii is 18.4% higher than the average cost of living nationwide. Indiana’s real estate dilemma? Its home values. Indiana homes are some of the least
valuable in the nation as most are worth
less than $142,000. The typical home
nationwide is worth $217,600.

The Eastern U.S. Also Battles Environment & Transportation Issues

The Eastern United States battles another bad trend or two. If you group the map by both environment and transportation, it’s apparent the East also has trouble with these categories. Delaware, New Jersey, North Carolina, and Ohio all face environmental issues. Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island struggle with roadside transportation.

Environmentally-speaking, just 2.4% of Delaware’s energy comes from renewable sources, one of the lowest shares of any U.S. state. Nationally, 11.7% of energy production comes from renewable non-hydro sources. New Jersey is one of the least environmentally friendly states as nearly all residents live in high ozone areas. Air high in ozone can be harmful to health. Maybe New Jersey should also be classified as an Eastern state that is not ideal for those seeking optimal health. Also not great for health: the air pollution problem in Ohio. The average daily concentration of PM2.5, a harmful substance, is the highest concentration of any state. Lastly, North Carolina has over 300 miles of coastline that is susceptible to damage from rising sea levels. By some estimates, rising sea levels could cost $223 million per year by 2080 in southern North Carolina alone.

As for transportation, 48.7% of Marylanders drive to work by themselves for more than 30 minutes each day, the highest of any state. We too noted this on our map of the U.S. city commute times. But it’s not too shocking Maryland has such a high solo commuter rate. This can be attributed to Washington D.C.’s infamous gridlock. On the other hand, residents of Pennsylvania likely opt out of driving as often since Pennsylvania has the highest gas tax. And we hear the roads in Rhode Island are pretty beat up.

Does the West Even Struggle?

So what do the Western states even struggle with? Unlike when we found that the West faces the most extreme high and low temperatures in the U.S. and the most NBA finals wins per team and opportunity, we don’t see many trends with the worst state statistics in the West. However, that doesn’t mean these states don’t have negatives. Washington and California face weather and natural disaster-related problems. Arizona and Colorado both have serious racial disparities they need to address. There are also a couple of Western states with negative lifestyle-related facts. Take Nevada’s sky-high divorce rate for example — though, who doesn’t get married and subsequently divorced in Vegas nowadays? Further lifestyle negatives include Utah’s lack of social spaces and Idaho’s lack of children in preschool. Other Western state stats: New Mexico’s got lots of crime while Oregonians and North Dakotans love their drugs. We guess the West’s trend is that they don’t have any trends.

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Once you recover from seeing the worst statistic about your state laid out clearly on a map, check out some more popular maps related to the worst statistic categories like how to map local crime data online, different drinking ages around the world on a map, or the most disastrous natural disasters mapped. Then, make a map of your own. Just enter the spreadsheet information you want mapped into our data-mapping tool and you too can delve into the world of insight opportunities.

Calling all foodies! We mapped 10 of the most highly-rated restaurants in 25 U.S. cities known for their cuisine. From Atlanta to Washington D.C., check out the top 10 restaurants, their Yelp rankings, and the type of food that lands them on the map. We note the eight most common types of cuisine and more tasty trends, like the many vegan and vegetarian establishments and how food trucks are taking over the scene. Plus, we identify a steakhouse chain that is sure to be a highly-rated winner in three cities. We’ll also show you how easy it is to find the highly-rated steakhouse or other of restaurant nearest you.

View Best Restaurants in Major Foodie Cities in a full screen map

Fortunately, it doesn’t always cost an arm and a leg to eat out at a high-quality establishment. You can sort our map above by the price you’re willing to pay for dishes from Yelp’s highly-rated restaurants. Each dollar sign represents a range. There are 121 highly-rated restaurants on our map that Yelp classifies as “Inexpensive” ($) and 118 that are “Moderately expensive” ($$). Only eight of the highly-rated restaurants on our map are “Pricey” ($$$) and three of which Yelp deems “Ultra High-End” ($$$$.)

Common Cuisines

Popular types of food for highly-rated restaurants include:

• American food like burgers, hotdogs, and delis
• Coffee & Tea
• Mediterranean food like Greek, Lebanese, and Middle Eastern cuisine
• Italian food like pizza
• Vegan & Vegetarian
• Desserts & Bakeries
• Japanese food like sushi and poke
• Food trucks

However, there are many more types of food that highly-rated restaurants serve. Use the map to see them all, from the less common but equally yummy Vietnamese food to Asian Fusion, Armenian food, or a good Cuban meal.

Tasty Trends — Vegan, Vegetarian, & Highly-Rated Food Trucks on the Rise

Who said vegan and vegetarian food is subpar? There are many vegan and vegetarian places that make the list of highly-rated restaurants. Filter the map by vegan and vegetarian options to see for yourself the 21 plant-loving restaurants that beat out even the highest-rated omni-establishments.

Like vegan and vegetarian-centered restaurants, food trucks cooking up delicious and highly-rated food in the confines of small spaces are on the rise. Traditional brick and mortar restaurants in Austin, Texas are especially susceptible to being overtaken by top-tier food trucks. Eight out of Austin’s 10 most highly-rated restaurants are food trucks. The map can show you the rest of the highly-rated food trucks in the U.S. You’ll even find the additional information section includes the specific cuisine of each food truck.

What’s Cookin’ in Atlanta, Houston, and San Antonio?

If you’re planning a trip to Atlanta, Georgia, hit up Flat Shoals Avenue, for three of the best restaurants in the city. In addition to the three highly-rated restaurants on Flat Shoals Avenue, Atlanta is one of the three cities where Chama Gaucha Brazilian Steakhouse is highly-rated. This restaurant chain ranks #2 in Atlanta, and #4 and #7 in Houston and San Antonio, Texas, respectively. But before you stop on by the Brazilian Steakhouse in one of these major foodie cities, note that it will cost you some serious cash. Yelp classifies this chain as Pricey ($$$).

You can also visit a Chama Gaucha Brazilian Steakhouse in Chicago. However, Chicago must have many other more highly-rated options than Chama Gaucha seeing as it doesn’t make it into the top ten most highly-rated in the Windy City. In fact, when we tried to identify this chain’s rank in Chicago, we gave up after it didn’t appear in Chicago’s top 350 highly-rated restaurants.

Find the Highly-Rated Restaurant Nearest You

Now that you have access to a map of the most highly-rated restaurants like the Chama Gaucha Brazilian Steakhouse chain, it’s time to find the highly-rated restaurant nearest you. The search box in the top right corner of the map can guide you to your closest 4 or 5-star restaurant.

Just type your city, ZIP code, or full address into the search box and hit enter.

Even more useful, you can narrow your search by the specific type of food you want to try, or even by your ideal price range. Before you search with your location, utilize our grouping feature to filter the map. Then search for the highly-rated restaurant nearest you with those specifications. The results of your search will only include what you elected to show.

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Want to get even more information about your city’s foodie hotspots? Make a map like ours, but include more than 10 of your city’s highly-rated restaurants. Then whip it out the next time you can’t decide where you want to eat.

It’s simple. Just copy 25 or 30 of Yelp’s restaurants in your area, like San Diego. Be sure to go to “All Filters” and sort by “Highest Rated.” Then, paste the data into a spreadsheet like Excel or Google Sheets. While you’re at it, check out our popular post about advanced excel skills and formulas. Once you’ve gathered your city’s restaurant data, you can format your spreadsheet using headers like restaurant, rank, food type, and of course, the location! The final step is to simply copy and paste your easily formatted spreadsheet data into our location data mapper.

Volcanoes are hot right now — or at least some of them are. We mapped over 400 volcanoes from around the world as well as their eruption statuses. Some volcanoes have been erupting continuously for hundreds of years, a few volcanoes have recently cooled off, and there are those that haven’t exploded for some time now. Each volcano can be classified by type, and while stratovolcanoes are the most common, there are fourteen other types of volcanoes to get heated over. Don’t worry if you can’t name them all just yet. You’ll soon be able to name quite a few, and you’ll successfully identify the specific characteristics of stratovolcanoes, calderas, shield volcanoes, complex volcanoes, and more!

View Volcanoes in a full screen map

Before you have a meltdown from dying to know which volcanoes are hot and which are not, know that you can easily sort the map by eruption status, type of volcano, and even elevation. After you’ve sorted the map, read on as we break down the magma-tudinous facts about some of the hottest — and coolest — volcanoes.

Longest Currently Erupting Volcanoes

The volcanoes classified as erupting have exploded as recently as 2018, and many are continuously erupting to this day. This includes the longest continuously erupting volcano: Mount Yasur, a stratovolcano in Vanuatu. Mount Yasur has been erupting nearly continuously since 1774, and its eruptions can occur up to several times per hour!

While no other volcano can tout such long-standing continuous eruptions like Mount Yasur, there are several volcanoes that have been erupting around the clock since the early 20th century. Volcanoes like Santa María, Dukono, Sangay, Stromboli, Sakurajima, Semeru, and Shiveluch have continued to keep their lava flowing since as early as 1922. In the United States, Kīlauea, a shield volcano located in Hawaii, erupted continuously from January 3rd, 1983 until September 4th, 2018. In 2018 the eruption that began decades ago was officially over.

Where In The World Are They Erupting?

There are 42 currently erupting volcanoes on the map, six of which are located in Indonesia and four are in Ecuador. Japan, Papua New Guinea, and the United States are all home three erupting volcanoes. Much like the highest summits in the U.S., many of the U.S.’s currently erupting volcanoes are located in Alaska. However, unlike the summits, there aren’t 49. Two out of three U.S. volcanoes are located in the Last Frontier: Mount Cleveland and Mount Shishaldin. Costa Rica, Guatemala, Italy, Mexico, Nicaragua, Peru, Russia, and Vanuatu each have to monitor two currently erupting volcanoes, while Antarctica, Colombia, France, India, the Lesser Sunda Islands, the Philippines, and the United Kingdom have one erupting volcano to watch out for.

Thirty-four of the erupting volcanoes can be classified as stratovolcanoes, while three are complex volcanoes, three are shield volcanoes, one is a pyroclastic cone and one is a cinder cone. The differences between the types of volcanoes are a blast to learn about, so keep reading.

Most Common Types of Volcanoes

Stratovolcanoes

Stratovolcanoes are built up of layers upon layers of lava and ash, and the word “strata” actually means layers. A stratovolcano’s lava typically doesn’t spread very far due to its thickness, so it’s good that they are the most common type of volcano. Two hundred and seventy-five out of the 419 volcanoes on the map are stratovolcanoes.

Calderas

Far less common than stratovolcanoes, calderas are huge and crater-like. They closely resemble a cauldron, which makes sense because in Portuguese, “caldera” means cauldron. You can find 40 caldera volcanoes on the map.

Shield Volcanoes

Pretty much the polar opposite of stratovolcanoes, shield volcanoes have fluid lava that can travel great distances. The liquidly lava also serves to give the shield volcano its flat shape, resembling a warrior’s shield on the ground — hence the name. There are 34 shield volcanoes on the map.

Complex Volcanoes

Last but not least for the most common types of volcanoes are complex — also called compound — volcanoes. Complex volcanoes consist of more than one peak, lake, or cone. There are 16 of these unusual-looking volcanoes on the map.

Other Types of Volcanoes

Other, less common types of volcanoes include volcanic field volcanoes, cinder cones, domes, fissure vents, pyroclastic cones, maar volcanoes, somma volcanoes, tuff ring volcanoes, plug volcanoes, and submarine volcanoes. Altogether, these 10 other types of volcanoes make up just over 12% of the world’s volcanoes.

No Elevation, No Problem: Submarine Volcanoes

Ten volcanoes on the map have negative elevations. You may be wondering how a volcano can erupt below sea level. Believe it or not, there is a specific type of volcano that manages to do just that. All but two of these under-the-sea volcanoes are submarine volcanoes, and while none of the submarine volcanoes on the map are currently erupting, they have successfully shot off steam at some point in their volcanic lives. One thing to note about submarine volcanoes: because they are surrounded by water, the volcano’s magma cools and solidifies quickly, sometimes forming super-cool volcanic glass.

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As you can see from the map, there are a lava different types of volcanoes that have different eruption statuses. You can make a map similar to this one of your favorite mountains to hike or even the landmarks specific to your state.