This week, like last year, the focus is on common Thanksgiving foods and which states produce them. The geographically accurate cartogram above redraws the states' sizes based on apple production. Specifically the number of acres dedicated to bearing the fruit. All 50 states produce apples and of the 50, the USDA publishes complete data on only 48 of them due to the other two states having few producers which would make it easy for their competitors to know how large their operations are.
Findings
- Of the states data is available for, Washington dedicates the most acres to bearing apples accounting for just under one-half of the nation's total acreage dedicated to the crop.
- While Washington is responsible for over 46% of acres dedicated to the crop in the country, New York and Michigan come in a distant second and third with 12 and 11% respectively.
- Twenty-one states dedicate less than 1,000 acres to bearing the fruit (in descending order): Iowa, Tennessee, Kentucky, Georgia, South Carolina, Nebraska, Montana, Rhode Island, Texas, Kansas, Nevada, Alabama, Arkansas, Delaware, South Dakota, Oklahoma, Florida, Mississippi, Wyoming, North Dakota, and Louisiana.
Caveats
- The agriculture census data is from 2012.
- The following states do produce apples but the USDA does not release production numbers because there are few operators in the state. It could be that these states are the largest or the smallest producers in the US. The states whose data was not released are Alaska and Hawaii.
- The choropleth classification is based on Jenks or natural breaks.
- The map is presented in an Albers equal-area conic projection.
- The two insets have the same scale as the main map.
Details
The Western states dedicate 54.85% of the total land dedicated to bearing the crop. The Northeast comes in a distant second with 22.03% of all the land in the US dedicated to apple production and is followed by the Midwest at 16.38%. The South only dedicates 6.73% of the total.
The total reported area dedicated to the crop in the United States is 336,940 acres or 526.47 square miles (about one-third the size of Rhode Island).
Data
| State | Acres | Percent of US Total |
|---|---|---|
| Alabama | 160 | 0.05 |
| Arizona | 1,150 | 0.34 |
| Arkansas | 157 | 0.05 |
| California | 15,988 | 4.75 |
| Colorado | 1,136 | 0.34 |
| Connecticut | 1,871 | 0.56 |
| Delaware | 150 | 0.04 |
| Florida | 48 | 0.01 |
| Georgia | 486 | 0.14 |
| Idaho | 2,537 | 0.75 |
| Illinois | 1,817 | 0.54 |
| Indiana | 1,534 | 0.46 |
| Iowa | 904 | 0.27 |
| Kansas | 213 | 0.06 |
| Kentucky | 614 | 0.18 |
| Louisiana | 11 | 0.00 |
| Maine | 2,939 | 0.87 |
| Maryland | 1,717 | 0.51 |
| Massachusetts | 2,933 | 0.87 |
| Michigan | 37,575 | 11.15 |
| Minnesota | 2,954 | 0.88 |
| Mississippi | 44 | 0.01 |
| Missouri | 1,161 | 0.34 |
| Montana | 223 | 0.07 |
| Nebraska | 226 | 0.07 |
| Nevada | 178 | 0.05 |
| New Hampshire | 1,431 | 0.42 |
| New Jersey | 1,481 | 0.44 |
| New Mexico | 1,296 | 0.38 |
| New York | 41,027 | 12.18 |
| North Carolina | 5,084 | 1.51 |
| North Dakota | 12 | 0.00 |
| Ohio | 4,275 | 1.27 |
| Oklahoma | 81 | 0.02 |
| Oregon | 4,888 | 1.45 |
| Pennsylvania | 18,848 | 5.59 |
| Rhode Island | 222 | 0.07 |
| South Carolina | 402 | 0.12 |
| South Dakota | 140 | 0.04 |
| Tennessee | 676 | 0.20 |
| Texas | 217 | 0.06 |
| Utah | 1,265 | 0.38 |
| Vermont | 1,617 | 0.48 |
| Virginia | 10,557 | 3.13 |
| Washington | 156,129 | 46.34 |
| West Virginia | 4,150 | 1.23 |
| Wisconsin | 4,384 | 1.30 |
| Wyoming | 32 | 0.01 |
Sources
United States Department of Agriculture. 2018. "USDA/NASS QuickStats Ad-Hoc Query Tool." Accessed November 18, 2018. https://quickstats.nass.usda.gov/results/0FD9BDDD-0867-31D5-975D-D0DD3D6BC458.