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by 0nly1ife 5867 days ago
Cool idea, but I think the data is skewed by population density, for example, the map shows Juarez as being more touristy than the Grand Canyon. A better approach might be to map the ratio of photos to population density.
5 comments

That's one of the coolest maps I've seen in a while. Thank you.
Thx. Me and http://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=martian wrote the software to make it. Martian made that particular map.
Where did you get the data? Is it free? I'd love to make some realtime software like this.
Many places. World Bank, Census, IMF etc. Do a text search on this page: http://uuorld.com/portal/ for "set:" Each set is free from its source but they require lots of tedious massaging to reformat.
I thought we were talking about user submitted, geo-tagged photographs?
It sounds like the guy who compiled the data is thinking of doing that too:

http://www.bluemoon.ee/~ahti/touristiness-map/

Agreed, it pretty much follows population density. Some notable exceptions are Utah, Colorado, Yellowstone, the Grand Canyon, the Smoky Mountains (on the border of Tennessee and North Carolina), the Carolina beaches, Vermont, northern New Hampshire, and the Adirondacks of New York.
Another exception is the Oregon Coast (where I grow up) It's bright yellow but pretty much no one lives there (relatively speaking). For example, the county I grew up, Lincoln County, is roughly the size of Rhode Island but has only around 45,000 people (figures from memory).

But it is extremely touristy. Highway 101 grinds to a stand still most summer days, especially when it's really hot inland in Portland / Salem / Eugene.

Upper Michigan has some definite breaks with population density. Escanaba has nothing, while Mackinac Island is very bright. Closer to home, there are hotspots at Houghton/Hancock and Copper Harbor, but emptiness in between, whereas Calumet/Laurium is quite a bit more populous than anywhere farther up the peninsula.
Also, the Antarctic Peninsula.
I am the author of the map. Sure, I will take population into account in the next revision. My main focus when creating this was to discover less touristy places, so I did not pay much attention to cities.
Sure is, Compton is bright yellow, for example :-)