Author: Adam DuVander

Shots, doses, and boosters are common topics of conversation these days. We may think primarily of the COVID vaccine, though that is simply the latest to be recommended through the United States. We can look to other public health vaccines to better understand what places tend to get vaccinated… and which abstain.

It was December 31, 2019 when the world saw the first cases of the latest novel coronavirus. The New Year was only a month old when the World Health Organization declared a global health emergency. COVID-19 took over headlines and hospitals worldwide throughout 2020, leaving devastating consequences in its wake.

However, scientists rapidly developed a COVID-19 vaccine. As doses rolled out, the United States wondered about compliance. How many would voluntarily receive the vaccine? While these numbers are still changing daily, we can look back at older vaccines to see which states, territories, and associated states are likely to be the most compliant. We’ll also be able to identify the parts of the country with less than ideal compliance, as shown on the map below.

View MMR, DTaP, and Varicella US Vaccination Rates in a full screen map

The map contains the CDC’s estimated vaccination coverage for MMR, DTaP, and varicella vaccines among U.S. kindergarteners from 2017–18. You can sort the map by each vaccine’s percentages or use multi-column grouping and filtering to view multiple vaccines’ top or bottom rates altogether. Then read on for more information.

States With Highest Vaccine Compliance

West Virginia often appears in the news for exceptional vaccine rates. But it’s not the only (or even the best!) state, U.S. territory, or other associated states with high compliance among three vaccines: MMR, DTaP, and Varicella.

Measles, Mumps, & Rubella Rates

Doctors recommend two doses of the vaccine for measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) for best protection. The first is generally given to children between 9-15 months, with a second dose at 15 months-6 years, meaning most children should be vaccinated by the time they enter kindergarten.

A median rate of 94.3% of US kindergarteners received the vaccine, indicating some places have better MMR vaccine compliance than others. Acknowledging the CDC didn’t have MMR data for Wyoming, Puerto Rico, or the U.S. Virgin Islands, below are the locations at or above 96.7% compliance.

State	Kindergarten population	% surveyed	MMR 2 doses (%)
Palau	313	100	100
Mississippi	39,284	100	99.4
Maryland	68,528	98.9	98.6
West Virginia	19,519	77.5	98.4
New York	226,456	100	97.2
North Carolina	127,197	95	97
California	574,702	98.2	96.9
Tennessee	78,743	100	96.9
Texas	387,981	97.4	96.9
Pennsylvania	141,571	87.1	96.7
Delaware	10,988	9.6	96.7

Palau is an island country located east of the Philippines. The U.S. is responsible for the country’s defense until 2044, making it the only territory or associated state to make it in the top best, and the only U.S. location with a perfect MMR injection rate. Of course, these rates are samples. There’s likely someone in Palau who is not vaccinated, but the CDC doesn’t ask every single person.

Of the contiguous U.S., Mississippi has the best (and near-perfect) 99.4% rate of the MMR vaccination—and it’s not alone in the Southeast. West Virginia has a similarly high rate of compliance along with North Carolina and Tennessee. In the Southwest, Texas alone has high rates.

While Texas, Tennessee, and West Virginia, and other Southern states typically face many health struggles (as discovered in the Worst Statistic About Your State On a Map), it’s clear they excel at vaccinations. West Virginia and Mississippi have a logical reason—they’re the only two states in the U.S. that do not allow religious or philosophical exemptions for vaccines.

Up in the Northeast, Maryland touts the second-best MMR vaccination rate of U.S. states and the third-highest overall. Within the same region, New York, Pennsylvania, and Delaware also have rates far above other states. As only California represents the other side of the country, there’s not much about the West to discuss. Now let’s move on to rates of the multi-dose DTaP vaccine.

States Down with DTaP

With the DTaP or diphtheria and tetanus toxoids and acellular pertussis vaccine, four or five doses are required. Even with the hassle of the additional doses, DTaP compliance looks nearly identical to that of the MMR vaccine, as you’ll see below.

State	Kindergarten population	% surveyed	DTaP 4 or 5 doses (%)
Palau	313	100	100
Mississippi	39,284	100	99.4
Maryland	68,528	98.9	99
Virginia**	100,581	4.2	98.2
West Virginia	19,519	77.5	98
Louisiana**	58,277	100	97.7
Pennsylvania	141,571	87.1	97
New York	226,456	100	96.9
Delaware	10,988	9.6	96.9
North Carolina	127,197	95	96.8
Texas	387,981	97.4	96.8

The island of Palau’s rate remains the same as its MMR rate: 100%. Plus, note the familiar states of Mississippi, Maryland, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, New York, Delaware, North Carolina, and Texas. These highly compliant states are newly joined by Virginia and Louisiana with notably high DTaP vaccine rates.

While Tennessee was included in the MMR list, The Volunteer State nearly missed the cutoff for the highest DTaP rates (it’s #12). Now let’s transition to the last vaccine we can compare: Varicella.

Varicella Vaccine

The varicella vaccine is a two-dose immunization that protects recipients from the highly contagious chickenpox. Aside from the Northern Mariana Islands, the vaccine is not required in most U.S. territories or associated states (American Samoa, Federated States of Micronesia, Guam, Marshall Islands, and Palau). The same goes for several U.S. states including Alabama, Arizona, California, Hawaii, Maine, New Jersey, Oklahoma, and Oregon.

Keeping that in mind, below are the states with the highest varicella compliance.

State	Kindergarten population	% surveyed	Varicella 2 doses (%)
Mississippi	39,284	100	99.4
Maryland	68,528	98.9	98.6
West Virginia	19,519	77.5	98.1
Pennsylvania	141,571	87.1	97
New York	226,456	100	96.9
Tennessee	78,743	100	96.8
North Carolina	127,197	95	96.8
Delaware	10,988	9.6	96.7
Texas	387,981	97.4	96.4
Connecticut	39,174	100	96.3

With Palau Island out of the equation, Mississippi takes the lead, though the state is just short of 100% compliance. Once again, there aren’t many new players when compared to the MMR or DTaP’s top states. In fact, there’s only one new addition, Connecticut. Now let’s take a look in the opposite direction: states with the lowest injection rates.

Lowest Complying States

As the anti-vaccination notion spreads across the country, vaccine compliance has gone down. While many states allow religious or philosophical vaccination exemptions, below are the 10 states with the lowest calculated average of all four immunizations.

• District of Columbia (80.5)
• Marshall Islands (82.15)
• Federated States of Micronesia (84.9)
• American Samoa (86.35)
• Northern Mariana Islands (87)
• Colorado (88.33)
• Guam (88.5)
• Kansas (88.96)
• Idaho (89.13)
• Washington (90.23)

Perhaps most surprising is that the nation’s capital has the absolute worst vaccination compliance rate in the entire U.S. (and territories plus associated states). We hope our Senators don’t get chickenpox while working in D.C.!

You can view the rest of the places on the lower end of compliance for all the vaccines when you add multiple groups and values to your filter, explained below.

Group & Filter By Multiple Columns

What could be better than filtering your maps by one spreadsheet column? Filtering by two or more, simultaneously. We explain the easy way you can do so for all of your maps in our post on the subject, Multi-Column Grouping and Filtering. A preview: it involves adding additional values at the bottom of your map. The filter increases as you add more values and you can also include values from different groups via the drop-down on the bottom left. Be sure to implement this in your next map with the help BatchGeo.

The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) presides at the highest level of America’s judicial system. It’s made up of a chief justice and eight associate justices who get confirmed by a Senate majority vote after a nomination by the president. While geographic diversity has been a key factor in presidential decisions, today’s justices can have ties to more than one state. For example, though the newly appointed Amy Coney Barrett was born in Louisiana, she identifies as being from Indiana, where she attended law school and lives now.

From the first Supreme Court Justice, John Jay in 1789, to the recent confirmation of #115, Justice Barrett, we’ll see which states have a lot of justices and which are without a single SCOTUS. Then we’ll investigate the shortest and longest tenures on the map below.

View Where Supreme Court Justices Are From in a full screen map

The data for the map came from Wikipedia’s list of the state of residence at the time of appointment. You can sort the map by a number of data points, perhaps most notably the president who nominated each justice, their confirmation year, when their tenure started, their position (whether chief justice or associate justice), and more. Let’s jump into it with the states with the most justices.

States Jammed With Justices

Thirty-one of the 50 United States have produced at least one Supreme Court justice. As is often the case, some states have more than others, with New York being the state with most. The Big Apple is where 15 SCOTUS members called home, though it’s not the only state from which multiple justices hail, as you’ll see below.

• New York: 15 justices
• Massachusetts: 9
• Ohio: 9
• Virginia: 8
• Kentucky: 6
• Maryland: 6
• Pennsylvania: 6
• Tennessee: 6
• New Jersey: 5
• California, Georgia & Illinois: 4

You’ll note from the map that five of these states are Northeastern, while four are located in the Southeast of the country. This may be because there were fewer states from which early justices could be appointed.

And while the other states may not measure up to those on the list above, Alabama, Connecticut, and South Carolina’s three justices aren’t anything to sniff at. Additionally, as the newest member of SCOTUS, Amy Coney Barrett is Indiana’s second confirmed judge. Other states with two include Arizona, Colorado, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire, and North Carolina. That leaves Kansas, Louisiana, Maine, Mississippi, Missouri, Texas, Utah, and Wyoming which have one each. Now that we know the states where multiple justices resided, let’s take a look at those sans Supreme Court justices.

States Without a Single SCOTUS

Now, not every state has had a Supreme Court justice who calls it home. Some don’t have a single one. Those 19 states are:

• Alaska
• Arkansas
• Delaware
• Florida
• Hawaii
• Idaho
• Montana
• North Dakota
• Nebraska
• New Mexico
• Nevada
• Oklahoma
• Oregon
• Rhode Island
• South Dakota
• Vermont
• Washington
• Wisconsin
• West Virginia

Seven (about 37%) of those are Western states, which becomes clear on the map. Even more specifically, the entire Pacific Northwest (Washington, Oregon, and Idaho) is without a single justice, along with the two non-contiguous states of Alaska and Hawaii. Now let’s move away from location towards the lengths of service.

Shortest & Longest Tenures

Supreme Court justices serve for life. From their confirmation until they die, resign, retire, or are impeached, SCOTUS members maintain their positions. How long that may be can differ from one justice to the next, though for the 106 non-incumbent justices, the average tenure was 16 years and 359 days.

The longest-serving justice was William O. Douglas. This 79th Supreme Court justice served from April 17, 1939 until he retired on November 12, 1975. In total, he served 36 years and 211 days.

The shortest-serving judge was John Rutledge. He served just 138 days between August 12, 1795 and December 28, 1795. Check out everything in between these two extreme tenure lengths by sorting the map. Speaking of, let’s see what more we can do with our maps.

Show More With Images in Your Map

Maps permit you to visualize your data geographically. But you can take that visualization one step further by incorporating photos or images into your maps. An example is our map of where Supreme Court justices are from in which we included portraits of each justice to better describe them.

Detailed steps are included in our blog post on how to Make a Map with Clickable Pop-up Infowindows and Images. It comes down to simply creating a column in your spreadsheet for the link of your images and selecting the proper options in the geocoder. Get started mapping your locations and your images today at batchgeo.com.

Of the 195 countries around the world, almost half can be considered islands. To meet the definition, these must be non-continental land surrounded by water. Though these island countries all meet the water at every border, they can be very different.

Some are huge, others tiny, a few are ancient, and many are newer than you might guess. Importantly, 45 of the 93 countries are considered associated states, dependencies, or other notable territories, meaning that while they’ve declared their independence as countries, though it hasn’t been universally recognized as such. And as you’ll see on the map, they are all quite geographically distributed, but all of them qualify as island escapes.

We’ll cover the largest of the 93 total island countries, the smallest, and lots of other details about these places. While these island nations can be more susceptible to the effects of climate change due to their proximity to water, some house huge populations. Additionally, we’ll highlight the oldest (and youngest) of these isles and demonstrate how you can obtain a summary of all your map markers from the map below.

View Island Countries in a full screen map

The map is based on this Wikipedia entry of island countries, which differentiates between widely-acknowledged countries and those that only consider themselves countries. You’ll also see each island’s size (one of the largest is 2.2 million km2!), with more details about individual islands below.

10 Largest Country Islands

Of the world’s established countries, 48 happen to be islands, AKA non-continental land surrounded by water. A reminder: the other 45 on the map aren’t universally considered countries. Let’s see which is the largest of these nations, along with the rest over 50,000 km2.

1. Indonesia: 1,904,569 km2
2. Madagascar: 587,041
3. Papua New Guinea: 462,840
4. Japan: 377,976
5. Philippines: 300,000
6. New Zealand: 268,680
7. United Kingdom: 244,820
8. Cuba: 109,238
9. Iceland: 102,775
10. Ireland: 70,273

Indonesia, the Philippines, and Papua New Guinea are clustered in Maritime Southeast Asia. To the North is Japan while two other island countries (the United Kingdom and Ireland) reside in the British Isles, not too far from Iceland.

Then there are the associated states, dependencies, and other notable territories that sprawl across hundreds of thousands of square kilometers. One of these is bigger than even the largest independent island country: Greenland. An autonomous territory of Denmark, Greenland’s 2,166,086 km2 is 1.14 times the size of Indonesia. As for the second largest of the associated state islands, Norway’s Svalbard is 62,045 km2. The rest range from 18,275 (New Caledonia) to only 12 km2 (Tokelau). But enough about the largest of these country islands, let’s scale down our focus to the smallest.

Smallest Isles

All the islands on the map may be countries but they come in a wide variety of sizes. Take Indonesia, the largest sovereign island country: it’s more than 90,000 times the size of the tiniest, noted on the list below.

1. Nauru: 21 km2
2. Tuvalu: 26
3. Marshall Islands: 181
4. Saint Kitts and Nevis: 261
5. Maldives: 298
6. Malta: 316
7. Grenada: 344
8. Saint Vincent and the Grenadines: 389
9. Barbados: 430
10. Antigua and Barbuda: 440

Of these independent island countries, half are located in the Caribbean: Saint Kitts and Nevis, Grenada, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Barbados, and Antigua and Barbuda. Now let’s move on from size to another metric.

Island Nations Population: Most & Least

Physical size isn’t everything. Other metrics make an island country stand out, like how many people choose to live there. The top ten most populated sovereign states have over 664 million residents combined, as you’ll see below.

Name	Population	Area (km2)	Pop density (per km2)
Indonesia	267,670,543	1,904,569	138
Japan	125,710,000	377,976	337
Philippines	101,398,120	300,000	295
United Kingdom	65,587,300	244,820	246
Madagascar	26,251,309	587,041	35.2
Republic of China	23,550,077	36,188	633
Sri Lanka	20,277,597	65,610	314
Haiti	11,439,646	27,750	350
Cuba	11,245,629	109,238	102.3
Dominican Republic	10,878,246	48,442	208.2

This table may appear a lot like the list of largest country islands (after all, Indonesia still resides on top). However, the Republic of China (also known as Taiwan), Sri Lanka, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic were added in place of Papua New Guinea, New Zealand, Iceland, and Ireland when it comes to the largest populations.

And while half of the smallest island countries (size-wise) are located in the Caribbean, it’s also home to three of the most populated (10+ million each): Haiti, Cuba, and the Dominican Republic. In Maritime Southeast Asia, Indonesia and the Philippines are two of the most populated island nations. Puerto Rico is the most populous associated state or territory with 3,690,923 people.

On the other hand, the island country of Singapore is highly populated when its relatively smaller size is taken into account. Discover other densely populated islands on the map or continue to learn about the least populated.

Least Populated Country Islands

Those who live in any of the following lesser independent populated island countries likely all know each other, so let’s take a look.

Name	Population	Area (km2)	Pop density (per km2)
Tuvalu	12,373	26	475.88
Nauru	13,635	21	649
Palau	20,000	459	43.6
Saint Kitts and Nevis	51,300	261	164
Marshall Islands	62,000	181	342.5
Dominica	71,293	754	105
Antigua and Barbuda	86,295	440	194
Seychelles	87,500	455	192
Kiribati	98,000	811	135
Federated States of Micronesia	101,351	702	158.1

Tuvalu and Nauru are the least populated country islands by a long shot. Tuvalu, which was the second smallest size-wise, is actually the least populated island while Nauru, the #1 smallest is the second least populated. Nauru is also one of the five islands with tiny populations located in Micronesia. Other islands that may be familiar from the smallest islands table include Marshall Islands, Saint Kitts and Nevis, and Antigua and Barbuda.

The folks with plenty of wide-open spaces (and the lowest population density) live in Iceland (3.1 per km2). Let’s move on from population size to another fact worth mentioning about the island countries.

Oldest of the Island Nations

Now let’s highlight the island countries that were either established or gained their independence so many years ago.

• Japan (660 BC)
• United Kingdom (1707)
• Haiti (1804)
• Dominican Republic (1821)
• Cuba (1868)
• Philippines (1898)
• New Zealand (1907)
• Republic of China (1912)
• Ireland (1919)
• Iceland (1944)

The Philippines gained separation from Spain on June 12th, 1898 and the island country later earned its independence from the U.S. in July of 1946. Both the Dominican Republic and Cuba also had two different dates of establishment. Then there are the newest nations.

Young Island Countries

As for the youngest of the bunch, East Timor is the only island country established in the 21st century. Other more recent additions to the island country roster are Brunei (1984), Saint Kitts and Nevis (1983), Antigua and Barbuda (1981), Palau (1981), and Vanuatu (1980).

Then there’s 1979, the year of island inclusion. Five island nations were established that year: Marshall Islands, Kiribati, Federated States of Micronesia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, and Saint Lucia. To see how you can better see them, read on.

Get a Summary of Your Many Markers

It’s easier to spot trends in your data when you can see it on a map. But sometimes, even with the visualization of a map, you’re faced with too many data points to gain insights. With 48 sovereign island countries and 45 associated or territory ones—some so small, as we’ve shown, you have to zoom in to get a good picture of what’s going on.

That is, unless you have summary markers to give you an idea of what’s below. A map with Cluster View enabled does just that. Learn more about how you can convert hundreds of markers into a reasonable number that still shares the underlying story or jump into it yourself with BatchGeo.