How many people can easily pinpoint where Nauru—one of the smallest island countries—is located in the Pacific Ocean? Or identify the exact location of 37.819722,-122.478611 on a map? Although you can zoom in and out of most online maps to aid your search for specific map markers, this doesn’t always enable everyone to find what they need quickly.

It’s easy to use Google Maps to find individual or multiple locations. What’s harder is identifying that single location without wiping out the rest of your search. One solution to this geographic puzzle is to build a map based on your own data, then add the data to Google. It’s too hard for most of us to do manually, but a free BatchGeo map can be generated from a spreadsheet.

So if you find yourself scouring a map for specific locations or coordinates, create a BatchGeo map and use the Search bar on any BatchGeo map, which is built on top of Google Maps. In this post, we’ll show multiple ways to search your map and how you get more information than just a pin’s location.

Find a City, State, or Country

Let’s start with a basic search.

View Example Sales Data in a full screen map

Say you have a sales map that includes customer cities and you’re looking for Buffalo Grove, Illinois customers…but where is that?

Instead of zooming in and out of Illinois to try and spot it, we’ll search for Buffalo Grove in the upper right-hand corner of the map.

Click on the Search result and you can go directly to the map marker for Buffalo Grove. With our Data View, you’ll also see a list of all of the customers in Buffalo Grove under the map, along with any additional information from your spreadsheet of data.

Multiple Location Search Results

If there are multiple results of your Search (as is the case for the most common U.S. city names), you’ll see them all listed in Data View as well as on the map.

Of course, your ability to Search applies to more than just sales maps—and it’s also not just cities like Buffalo Grove or Franklin. Let’s see how latitude longitude searches work, even if the exact latitude and longitude aren’t data points on your map.

Latitude Longitude Searches (Exact and Nearest)

Moving on, you can also find a point on the map with a Search for a coordinate pair: latitude and longitude. Latitude and longitude are commonly depicted in decimal degrees (59.3277778, 18.09111111), with latitude typically listed first, followed by longitude.

Pinpoint Exact Latitude and Longitude

Of course, as with searching for a city, you can type in an individual latitude or longitude decimal. Let’s test it out with our map of 569 international shipwrecks.

View International Shipwrecks in a full screen map

It will appear as a Search result.

On the other hand, entering an entire coordinate pair will give you one of two results. If it’s a point pinned on your map, you’ll be taken directly to it. For example, a Search for the coordinates of the Vasa shipwreck (59.3277778, 18.09111111) takes you directly to the map marker.

However, if it’s not a point, the result will be different.

Find the Nearest Coordinates

Oftentimes, the exact coordinate pair (or even city, state, or country!) might not be contained in a marker on your map. In that case, you’ll get the nearest pin to your Search.

Now let’s see if there’s a shipwreck using Portland, Oregon’s coordinates (hint: there’s not because it’s land).

If you Search for a coordinate pair (or city, state, country, etc.) and it’s not a marker, you’ll get to see the nearest point to your Search. In this case, we’re taken to the I-183 wreck in the Pacific Ocean. While miles away from Portland, Oregon, the information is still useful—we know it’s the nearest marker on the map.

Getting the nearest pin to your Search also applies when searching for cities, states, countries, etc. Search for cities, states, countries, and geographic coordinates on any custom BatchGeo map you make from top golf courses to island countries.

Nelson Mandela said that education is the most powerful weapon to change the world. But not every city worldwide, or even in a country like the U.S., has the same education levels. In fact, some cities in America see 53.8% of residents completing graduate school while other U.S. cities just 0.9%. That’s a big gap.

So when it comes to the most educated cities in the US, the map below teaches us those with the highest percentage of graduate or professional degrees, cities where most people stop after their Bachelor’s, Associate’s, some college or high school, along with several more levels of education.

View Most Educated Cities in the US in a full screen map

The map’s educational attainment data comes from the recent U.S. Census Bureau’s 2019 American Community Survey. It describes the education level of those over the age of 25 in 630 cities, ranging from high school, Associate’s degrees, Bachelor’s, and beyond to conclude the US cities with the highest education rates. So let’s get learning which those are, including the #1 most educated city in the US (a hint: it’s in California).

Most Educated Cities in the US: Grad School Edition

There are many levels of education: 9th-grade completion, high school graduation, and Bachelor of Arts. But the most educated cities in the US are those with the highest percentage of grad school graduates. The 10 cities below report between 37.6% to 53.8% of their population received graduate degrees:

• Palo Alto, California – 53.8%
• Newton, Massachusetts – 51.2%
• Cambridge, Massachusetts – 50.3%
• Ann Arbor, Michigan – 46.3%
• Evanston, Illinois – 41.6%
• Berkeley, California – 41.3%
• Boulder, Colorado – 40.6%
• Arlington, Virginia – 40.1%
• Mountain View, California – 39.7%
• Carmel, Indiana – 37.6%

Whether California is home to ample universities with professional programs or there’s just something in the water, there’s no doubt the Golden State gets an “A” in education. The most educated city in the US, Palo Alto, is located here, along with Berkeley (#6) and Mountain View (#9). Of course, many of these cities are near large and famous universities, including Stanford in Palo Alto and Berkeley, in, well… Berkeley. Additionally, Google is based in Mountain View and hires many PhDs. While the American average for graduate degrees is 13.8%, a total of 48 California cities fall above that, making CA one of the most educated states ranking.

On the opposite side of the country, Massachusetts’ top intelligent towns include Newton along with Cambridge, which is home to Harvard and MIT.

That leaves just half of the top 10 to be discussed, three of which are located in Midwestern states like Illinois, Indiana, and Michigan. Of course, many folks stop at a Bachelor’s degree, so let’s highlight them.

American Cities Without Graduate Degrees

As we previously mentioned, an average of 13.8% of people in American cities have graduate degrees. The following cities are well beneath that percentage, making them some of the least educated in the nation.

• Lynwood, California – 0.9%
• Camden, New Jersey – 1.3%
• South Gate, California – 1.4%
• Florence-Graham, California – 1.6%
• Tulare, California – 1.6%
• Cicero, Illinois – 1.8%
• Paterson, New Jersey – 1.8%
• East Los Angeles, California – 1.9%
• El Monte, California – 2%
• Pharr, Texas – 2.1%

While California the state was home to a few of the best educated locations, more than half of the cities above are located in California. The difference is that these are smaller, less-populated areas with historically low-income residents.

Five of the six rural Californian cities are located within 20 miles of one another, the same distance of previously-mentioned Illinois’s topmost educated city (Evanston) from lesser-so Cicero.

And of course, it has to be said that the Texan city of Pharr also happens to be far from a high rate of professional degree recipients. Regionally, only the Southeast is not represented by the least-educated cities above. However, it should be noted that several of these lesser cities have higher-than-average rates of other education levels.

Bachelor’s Degree Hubs

Finally, when it comes to being one degree removed from graduate education, the U.S. average is 21.87%. But where there’s an average, there are those that excel.

As was the case with graduate degrees, California is home to two of the country’s cities with a high percentage of Bachelor’s degrees: Redondo Beach (43.2%) and San Ramon (40.1%). Then there are three Georgian cities: Alpharetta (42.4%), Johns Creek (39.6%), and Sandy Springs (39.5%) with higher-than-average rates.

And ultimately, the following cities are just as notable:

• Highlands Ranch, Colorado – 41.4%
• Fishers, Indiana – 41.1%
• Sammamish, Washington – 40.9%
• Flower Mound, Texas – 40.3%
• Mount Pleasant, South Carolina – 39.9%

For more maps on education, be sure to check out Does Education Influence Incarceration? and Map of Top Colleges in the US. Or get started with BatchGeo today.

Amid soaring home prices and increasing cars, gas, and food costs, it’s easy to forget about other million-dollar markets, like housing defendants awaiting a trial along with those who are found guilty of a crime. While we’re not footing the bill directly, prison costs U.S. taxpayers $80 billion a year.

Yet, all expenses considered, 266 countries have prisons that house over 10 million inmates in total. So, of the populations of prisons around the world, let’s take a look at the 10 countries with the most inmates and the highest prison populations per 100,000 people. We’ll also learn the percentage of incarcerated males and females, all of which you can also find on the map below.

View World’s prison population in a full screen map

10 Countries with the Most Inmates

Let’s first take a look at the total prison population count. Of the 226 countries on the map, ten are home to over 200,000 prisoners. Some even have an incarceration count near the multi-millions.

1. United States – 2,094,000 total prison population
2. China – 1,710,000
3. Brazil – 759,518
4. India – 478,600
5. Russia – 469,283
6. Thailand – 311,605
7. Turkey – 281,094
8. Indonesia – 256,051
9. Mexico – 215,232
10. Philippines – 215,000

The countries above hold the highest population of prisoners, with the most incarcerated in the U.S. America is the only country in the world to total over two million inmates. Many are housed in two of the largest jails: California’s Los Angeles County (inmate population of 19,836) and Rikers Island in New York (13,849 inmates). Along with the U.S., Brazil and Mexico are also home to high prison populations in the Americas.

But while the U.S. is the country with the most incarcerated individuals, Asia as a continent is where multiple countries with highly-populated prisons are located. The map shows pins clustered in Asia, representing the large prison populations of China, India, Thailand, Turkey, Indonesia, and the Philippines.

However, many of these countries with large prison populations are also the most generally populated in the world. So let’s see if the list changes when we take population into account.

Highest Prisoner Rate per 100,000 People

How does a country’s general population affect its incarceration rate—and its rank among the world’s countries with the most inmates? We’ll find out when we take a look at each country’s prison population per 100,000 people on the table below.

Country or subnational area	Rate per 100,000
United States	639
El Salvador	572
Turkmenistan	552
Palau	522
Rwanda	511
Cuba	510
Maldives	499
Thailand	449
British Virgin Islands	447
Bahamas	442

Once again, the U.S. tops the charts, even when population is considered. For every 100,000 people, 639 are incarcerated in the country. While this doesn’t 100% answer the question of what country has the worst prisons, the U.S. definitely has the most people in prison.

Thailand is the only country with a large count and a high rate of prisoners. No other country with a prisoner count falls on this list. But India (#4 in prisoner count) does make another list: lowest prisoner rate. While India houses 478,600 inmates, its rate of incarceration is the 15th lowest in the world (35 per 100,000 people).

Also in Asia: Turkmenistan, Maldives, and Thailand have the highest prisoner rates, joined by countries in the Americas: El Salvador, Cuba, British Virgin Islands, and the Bahamas. We can now move on to our final deep dive into the data on the map: the percentage of males versus females in prison.

Percentage of Incarcerated Males & Females

That just leaves the percentage of male and female inmates, national and foreign percentage, along with occupancy and remand. We’ll address the percentage of male and female inmates now, and you discover more about the other categories by browsing the map.

Countries with All-Male Inmates

Did you know that seven countries have entirely all-male prison populations?

• Anguilla
• Faroe Islands
• Liechtenstein
• Marshall Islands
• Micronesia
• San Marino
• Tuvalu

Within these countries’ prisons, 100% are male inmates and 0% are female. The rest of the world’s male prison populations range from 99.7% (Mayotte) to 79.9% (Hong Kong). So let’s move on to female prison populations.

Highest Female Prison Populations

In contrast to male prison populations, female inmates are less common. The following countries have the highest percentage of female prisoners in the world:

• Hong Kong (20.1% female prisoners)
• Qatar (14.7%)
• Monaco (14.3%)
• Greenland (13.8%)
• Laos (13.7%)
• Myanmar (12.3%)
• Macau (12.2%)
• Thailand (12.2%)

And that’s a wrap on our map of the populations of prisons around the world. You’ll also want to check out Does Education Influence Incarceration? or Famous Filming Locations Pinned, containing infamous prisons in film.