With college football bowl game season upon us, the whole nation seems to be celebrating the pigskin. Yet, some parts of the United States are more naturally football-inclined. Of course, there’s Texas, where the game is as big as the state, but there are a handful of other football hubs, as we discovered when we mapped every single college football player by their hometown.

View Where College Football Players Are From in a full screen map

Click around the map for yourself—it contains 25,000 NCAA football players. Or, read on to see the insights we’ve snapped from the map.

Top States for Football

The map makes it clear what some already knew—there are states that tend to produce more college football players than others. There are five states in particular that are home to more college football players than any other states in the U.S.

State	Count
Texas	2,877
Florida	2,589
California	2,335
Georgia	1,950
Ohio	1,080

As we’ve mentioned, Texas tops the list of states with the most college football players. With 2,877 college football players who call the state home, Texas surely wins in producing these college athletes. Second on our list is Florida. The Sunshine State can claim 2,589 college football players as their own. California concludes the top three, flaunting a whopping 2,335 college football players. These top three states are all home to 2,000 or more college football players.

Georgia earns its place in the top five states with just under 2,000 college football players—1,950 to be exact. We close out the top five states for college football players with Ohio. The state has 1,080 players and is the last state to have 1,000 or more college football players call it home.

Curious about the states that produce the least amount of college football players? The following five states have all produced less than 25 college football players. Wyoming has 23 college football who claim the state as home. Maine and New Hampshire both have 21 homegrown college players. Arkansas has 14 and Vermont has the very lowest with only two college football players to claim as their own.

Top Hometowns

There are over 5,000 distinct hometowns for college football players.

That breaks up further into 3,000 cities that have two or more college football players claiming them as their hometown. There are 1,215 cities that have produced five or more college football players. Exactly 529 cities are home to 10 or more college football players. As for cities with 50 or more college football players calling them home, there are 49. And finally, 17 cities can claim 100 or more football players as homegrown.

The top ten cities for producing college football players might not be a much of a surprise. A large majority of these cities are located within the top 5 states for football players.

Hometown	Count
Houston, TX	319
Miami, FL	296
Jacksonville, FL	213
Atlanta, GA	204
New Orleans, LA	179
Charlotte, NC	160
Tampa, FL	154
Cincinnati, OH	154
Dallas, TX	144
Chicago, IL	134

Just as expected for the number one top state for raising college football players, a Texas city produces the most college football players. Which city in the football player hub produces the most for the state? Houston, Texas. Houston is home to 319 college football players, which is more than any other city.

Second place goes to Miami, Florida which is home to 296 football players. Rounding out the top three is another city in Florida: Jacksonville, Florida, which is the hometown of 213 college football players. Atlanta, Georgia is home to 204 college football players, ending the 200 plus, and our top four cities.

The rest of the cities on our top ten list are all home to 100 or more college football players.

Most Popular Colleges for Houston, Miami, Jacksonville, and Atlanta

Our top four cities: Houston, Miami, Jacksonville, and Atlanta also have certain colleges where more college football players stay close to home to play than others.

The most popular colleges for Houston, Texas, where players from the same city attend, include the Houston Cougars with 20 players attending from Houston, the Texas Southern Tigers with 19 players, the Rice Owls with 13 players, and the Texas A&M Aggies, Texas Tech Red Raiders, and Houston Baptist Huskies all with 12 players.

The most popular colleges for Miami, Florida include the Florida Intl Golden Panthers with 25 players who have chosen to stay in their hometown of the capital of the Sunshine State, the Miami Hurricanes with 15 players who chose to stay, the Florida A&M Rattlers with 14 players, and the South Florida Bulls and Florida Gators, both with 13 players.

As for Jacksonville? The most popular colleges for Jacksonville, Florida football-playing residents include the Florida Atlantic Owls with 13 players, the Savannah State Tigers with 10 players, the Jacksonville Dolphins with 9 players, the Florida Gators with 8 players, and the Florida A&M Rattlers, UCF Knights, and the Florida Intl Golden Panthers with 7 college football players choosing to stay close to home.

The most popular colleges for Atlanta are the Georgia Bulldogs with 9 players, the Georgia State Panthers with 7 players, the Florida A&M Rattlers and Savannah State Tigers both with 6 players, and the Alabama A&M Bulldogs, Southern Jaguars, Hampton Pirates, and Middle Tennessee Blue Raiders all with 5 players.

Image courtesy of SBNation

International College Football Players

While many college football players are from hometowns within the U.S., we can’t forget the players not from the U.S. These players hail from all across the globe. From Canada to Australia to Puerto Rico, we were curious as to where these international college football players come from.

Three American college football players get to call Austrailia home. Alex Bland, who plays for the Oregon State Beavers is from the Land Down Under. Matt Leo, number 89 for the Iowa State Cyclones and Dominic Panazzolo, who plays for Texas Tech Red Raiders are also from Australia.

Miguel Provencio represents Mexico in the U.S. Provencio plays for the New Mexico State Aggies. Dereck Boles, who plays for the Arizona Wildcats, is from Jamaica. Withney Simon, who plays for Southern Illinois Salukis, is from Haiti. Three players come from the Bahamas. Mavin Saunders, who plays for the Florida State Seminoles, Chris Ferguson, who plays for the Cincinnati Bearcats, and Glen Bethel, number 70 for the South Florida Bulls all call the Bahamas home. Puerto Rico is home to Miami Hurricanes player Elias Lugo-Fagundo, and also home to Gerardo Rodriguez, who plays for the Stetson Hatters.

While Austalia, Mexico, Jamaica, Haiti, the Bahamas, and Puerto Rico produce some college football players, the vast majority of international college football players come from Canada. Canada represents a large part of American football.

Ontario, Canada, the most populous province in Canada, is home to 32 college football players. Quebec, Canada has produced 16 players who play college football in the U.S. British Columbia can lay claim to nine American college football players. Seven players are from Nova Scotia, Canada. Five players are from Alberta, Canada, and of those five, three play for the Oklahoma State Cowboys. Two players are from the district of Manitoba, Canada. These two players both happen to play for the same team: both Brady Oliveira and Mason Bennett play for the North Dakota Fighting Hawks. Canadian player Ladji Bagayoko plays for the San Diego State Aztecs.

This makes Canada’s grand total out to be 72 college football players.

By the Numbers: Height and Weight in College Football

Since we were looking at every college player, we decided to dig a little deeper than just the hometown. Football players are known for their size, so we also considered their measurements, too. In fact, you can use the map to group and filter by weight or height ranges.

The median height of all of the college football players is 73 inches or 6’1″, which we think is pretty tall. Even taller than that is the maximum height of the college football players which is 83 inches or 6’11”. Two players reach this massive height: Justin Wright, a quarterback for the Hampton Pirates and Sherman Harris, a defensive back for the Duquesne Dukes. No one can say they beat 6’11” currently in college football, so there are no 7-footers. But 6’11” is still pretty tall.

Rudy Ruettiger, who was known for his shorter height of 5’6″ has some competition in the current crop of college football players. There are 29 players shorter than the famous Rudy: 15 running backs, seven wide receivers, six placekickers, and one defensive back. However, the current minimum height is 60 inches or a solid 5’0″, which is six inches shorter than Rudy! This height belongs to Ronald Ricci of the Florida A&M Rattlers.

The median weight of all of the 25,000 NCAA football players is 215 pounds. The largest of the group? Both Cheickna Doucoure of the Central Connecticut Blue Devils and Jamari Logan, playing for the Northern Colorado Bears come in at the maximum weight of 425 pounds. On the opposite end of the spectrum is the minimum weight, which is 130 pounds and belongs to Champ Flemings of the Oregon State Beavers.

There you have it! Now you know the details of every single college football player! Whether it’s hometown, or height and weight, discover more about your favorite college football players on the map above. And if you’re more of a professional sports fan, check out these NBA Finals Winners and Losers on a Map.

It has been one hundred years since 1918, the year best known for seeing the end to World War I. However, there were many other important events that took place in 1918 that were unrelated to the first World War. These events fall into the categories of the Russian Civil War, politics, culture, disaster, and of course, the biggest disaster of all, World War I. Use the categories to easily navigate the map below, or read on for highlights from one hundred years ago.

View 1918: Map of Historical Significance in a full screen map

World War I

World War I, the war that resulted in the deaths of 9 million soldiers and 7 million civilians, was one of the deadliest conflicts in all of history. Among the countries with WWI-related events, based on Wikipedia’s list, are Austria, Belgium, Croatia, Czechoslovakia, England, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Iraq, Ireland, Israel (then Palestine), Italy, Jordan, Poland, Russia, Serbia, South Africa, Syria, and the United States. There’s a good reason it became known as a World War.

Using the map above, click the WWI category in order to isolate the events related to World War I.

The war began with the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria in June of 1914. The two sides fighting in the war were the Allies, which consisted of Britain, France, Italy, Russia, and the U.S. and the Central Powers, which consisted of Germany and Austria-Hungary, later to be joined by the Ottoman Empire and Bulgaria. The Allies and the Central Powers ended the conflict on November 11th, 1918 with the Armistice of Compiègne named after the location in which the armistice was signed in Compiègne, France. However, the severity of the aftermath of the war was a factor that led to World War II in 1939.

Russian Civil War

Russia’s Civil War began at the end of 1917 and continued on into 1918. It was the immediate result of the Russian Revolutions of 1917. The Revolutions led to many different political parties vying for control of Russia’s future. The most active political parties in the Russian Civil War were the Red Army and the White Army. The Red Army fought for Bolshevik socialism and was led by Vladimir Lenin. The White Army was an anti-communist group who fought the Bolsheviks. The Allied Powers of World War I backed the White Army, and a total of eight other countries intervened in this Civil War in opposition to the Red Army.

The Russian Civil War ended in 1922 with an estimate of between 7,000,000 and 12,000,000 casualties, a large majority of which were civilians. The Russian Civil War has been described as being the greatest national catastrophe that Europe had yet seen at this point in history.

Other Political Events

Other political events of importance that occurred in 1918 include the last of the battles of the American Indian Wars between the United States and Native Americans, new voting laws in various countries, including women’s suffrage in the United Kingdom, a variety of successions and elections in several countries and the founding of the Association Against the Prohibition Amendment, an organization created to fight Prohibition in the United States.

Culture

Some of the highlights of the cultural events of 1918 include the death of the last captive Carolina parakeet, the test run of the first pilotless drone in New York, the death of a magician from a trick gone awry, a new bright nova discovered, and the release of a movie in the U.S. which featured one of the oldest actors to ever star in a movie at the age of 114.

Disaster

While many amazing political and cultural gains were made in 1918, disaster also struck the year hard. The Spanish influenza ran rampant throughout the world, and many transportation systems faced disaster. This included the Great Train Wreck of 1918 in Tennessee, the sinking of Princess Sophia in what is known as the greatest maritime disaster in the Pacific Northwest, the explosion of a Japanese Naval battleship, and the worst railroad accident in world history located in Brooklyn, New York. Natural disasters also made frequent appearances in 1918. Earthquakes, fires, and tornados struck the world and 1,000 pilot whales became stranded in the Chatham Islands.

1918 was a very memorable year indeed, and here we are, one hundred years later! Click around to see more, or plot some history with your own map today.

If you’re like us, you keep a lot of data in Google Spreadsheets. With many of the features of Excel and the ability to easily collaborate, it’s no wonder this has become the go-to for many business and personal use cases. At BatchGeo, we’ve noticed spreadsheets are a popular place to store location data, such as customer locations.

That’s why we built a way to quickly turn spreadsheets into maps. Below we’ll show you the best way to convert your Google Spreadsheets data into beautiful, interactive maps. In fact, this works for any spreadsheet application you use, with nothing to install or download.

1. Identify Your Location Data

Before you can make a map from your data, you’ll need to figure out if you have any geographic terms in your spreadsheet. There are many different types of location data, but it works best if it’s structured. You’ll see what we mean in the examples below.

Your location data will then be converted into geographic coordinates through a process called geocoding. The result is an estimate of the actual coordinates needed to plot the place on a map. Depending on the type of location data, the point can be highly accurate.

Addresses

Addresses are a really useful type of location data because they are common, human-readable, and specific. In fact, there’s probably an address to describe the place you live!

• Full address is a single field with an entire address, including city, state/province, and postal code.
• Segmented address is multiple fields for each piece of the address.
• Partial address may be missing a street number, a city, or other information. Most geocoders will make educated guesses for partial addresses.

If you have customer data, you may very likely have an address for them! Mapping customers can help you make important business decisions and analyze where you’ve been successful with your efforts. These maps can even help you plan specific customer visits, because an address gives you an exact location.

Regions

For many analyses, a general location is enough information to get an interesting map. If you’re looking at a global scale, having an exact address is not that different from knowing a location’s city, for example. The marker will appear to be in roughly the same place. Regional data is often easier to find than specific address-level data, giving you more opportunities to map your data.

Some examples of regions you can convert to geographic coordinates:

• Countries
• States or provinces
• Counties, parishes, or other localities
• Postal codes

Regions are larger than places described by an address, so the “point” provided is less specific. Typically, geocoders use centroids, such as the geographic mid-point within a city’s boundaries.

One advantage of regions is that you can often glean this from other data. For example, some services can tell you a city of the person behind an email address. You can also geolocate by IP address for visitors of a website, for example.

Coordinates

The last type of geographic data is the simplest and most specific. It is not particularly human-readable, however. Raw coordinates are referred to as latitude and longitude pairs, because there are two numbers that plot a point on a two dimensional plane representation of earth.

For example: 44.4604788, -110.8281375

You could use those two numbers to find Old Faithful, one of the Geysers of Yellowstone National Park.

Often coordinates are listed in “latitude, longitude” format. However, annoyingly, sometimes they’re written in the reverse! For this reason, it’s best to include these as separate, named, fields. In other words, if you have coordinate data, your spreadsheet should include a latitude column and a separate longitude column.

2. Copy and Paste From Your Spreadsheet

Now you’ve discovered the location data within your Excel, Numbers, Google Sheets, or other spreadsheet! You’re ready to convert your spreadsheet into a map—that’s why you’re here, right?

To create a basic map, all you need is your location data. That can be as simple as a list of addresses, like this:

• Hotel Address
• 3570 Las Vegas Boulevard South Las Vegas, NV
• 2000 Las Vegas Boulevard South Las Vegas, NV
• 3400 Las Vegas Boulevard South Las Vegas, NV
• 3799 Las Vegas Boulevard South Las Vegas, NV
• 3600 Las Vegas Boulevard South Las Vegas, NV

If that was a column in your spreadsheet, you could simply copy it and paste into the box at the top of our mapping tool. You’d end up with a map like this:

View A Few Las Vegas Hotels in a full screen map

While that’s pretty cool, you may find yourself wanting to know more details about each hotel. For example, what’s the name? And that data may very well be in your spreadsheet! Why not make it available? Let’s say your spreadsheet looks something like this:

Name	Hotel Address	Rooms
Caesar’s Palace	3570 Las Vegas Boulevard South Las Vegas, NV	3,348
Stratosphere	2000 Las Vegas Boulevard South Las Vegas, NV	2,427
The Mirage	3400 Las Vegas Boulevard South Las Vegas, NV	3,044
MGM Grand	3799 Las Vegas Boulevard South Las Vegas, NV	5,124
Bellagio	3600 Las Vegas Boulevard South Las Vegas, NV	3,950

Highlight, copy, and paste that into the map builder and you’ll end up with a similar map as before, but with more data available!

View A Few Vegas Hotels with Names/Rooms in a full screen map

Note that the color of the icon is based on the number of rooms. And when you click a marker, you can see the name, as well as the room data. If you had other columns in your spreadsheet, they’d show up here, too. Bringing your additional data into your map opens up all sorts of opportunities to explore the meaning behind your data.

For a larger example, see this map of the world’s largest hotels.

3. Tweak Fields and Settings

You can create great maps with our three step "copy, paste, click” process. Yet, there is additional power within your map waiting to be released. You can provide filtering and grouping options, show clusters of data, and aggregate fields within your dataset.

Rather than clicking that “Map Now” button after pasting in your data, click Validate & Set Options. You’ll see a handful of additional options:

Declaring a region helps the geocoder make intelligent decisions (if it’s an international map, choose that option). The location, city, state, and zip fields help you correct BatchGeo if we’ve made an incorrect assumption with your data. This is especially useful when you have multiple location fields.

Finally, the “group by” option lets you decide which of your fields you’ll show as the filtering option when the map is loaded. For my Las Vegas map, I chose “Rooms,” which is why the markers were different colors in the second map of the previous section.

Again, you have the choice to “Make Map” or uncover even more settings by clicking the “Advanced Options” button, which will show another menu like this:

Here you can change the colors and style of markers, alter the underlying map style, and more. While BatchGeo Pro options are shown above, even free versions have a lot of ways to tweak your map.

Try changing some options and see how your map looks. Go back to the edit screen (a link is sent to the email address you used to create the map) and try another option. Make your map fit your individual needs and help uncover the story within your data.

If you’re ready to create some fantastic maps, be sure to see our 5 Steps to Becoming a BatchGeo Power User article, with tips for re-ordering data and including images.