The Rankings feature of DataPlace provides a simple way to see
how your area of interest compares with other locations of the
same type on a given indicator. You can also specify a
geographic boundary that defines which set of locations are
included in your rankings. For example, you can rank all
counties in the nation, or limit your rankings to just those
counties within a specified state. To start, click on the
"Rankings" link at the top of the DataPlace home page.
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| Features of Rankings page | |
The default Rankings page shows states ranked in descending
order by total population. DataPlace provides each state's rank.
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Histograms. Next to each indicator in the area overview
or on the rankings page is a histogram -- a graphical
representation of an indicator's frequency distribution. The x-axis
is the range of all the statistics in DataPlace for a
particular indicator with the rightmost side of the axis
representing the highest part of the range and the left axis
representing the lowest part of the range. DataPlace condenses
or expands the x-axis so that it is always the same length from
left to right. The y-axis shows the number of places at each
interval on the x-axis; higher bars represent more places,
shorter bars represent fewer places. The comparisons made on
each indicator's histogram relate to the type of place (e.g.,
state, county, etc.) under investigation. If looking at an
indicator for a county, you'll see the histogram comparing that
county to other counties in the US; same goes for states,
tracts, and so on. A red bar represents where the particular
place you're looking at falls on the x-axis. The y-axis doesn't
show the level of that particular indicator, but shows your
location and how many or few locations like the one you're
looking at exist within the US for that particular indicator.
Consider the histogram for California's population in
the histogram to the right. The 2000 Census had the population
of California to be 33,871,648. Because California was the most
populous state in the nation, and because it is alone in its
large population, the red rectangle representing California is a
small blip for the y-axis because it's the only state with that
population; therefore, when it is the only one, the blip is
small. Because it is the most populous, and because the x-axis
is a graphical depiction of the entire range of values -- in this
case state populations -- the red blip is also farthest to the
right on the x-axis. The other thing to note is that most other
states in the nation don't fall anywhere close to California's
population. You can see this because the higher bars to the
left -- the part of the x-axis where the lowest parts of the
state populations numbers live -- show that most states fall in
the lower part of the range, with the most states falling in the
lowest interval.
Histograms take some getting used to. Look at the top
30 in the rankings page for a view of how they change from most
populous to least populous. You'll find that the red blip moves
down the scale from highest to lowest and that's actually quite
common (Zipf's law).
- Paging. You can move up and down the rankings by
using the links at the bottom right of any ranking page.
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Sort order. You can change your sort order by
clicking the indicator link at the top of the page. For
example, on the default Rankings page, clicking on the
"Total population 2000" link reverses the sort order from
descending to ascending, showing Wyoming as the least
populous state in the nation.
District of Columbia is included in the rankings list as the
second least populous "state." The District of Columbia is
included in any state ranking on DataPlace.
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To the right of the rankings list, the yellow box labeled
"Choose data to show" provides several options for selecting an
indicator to display.
- My Indicators: If you're a registered DataPlace user and are
logged in to the site, this link displays the indicators you
have saved in your My DataPlace area. Click on the "add" link to
the left of an indicator label to display it on the map.
- Popular: This link displays the five most popular indicators
on DataPlace.
- Recently Used: This link displays the indicators that you've
previously selected in your current DataPlace session.
- Browse All: Type a key word -- such as "poverty" or
"subprime" -- in the search box and hit Search to see all the
indicators that contain the search term. You can refine your
search by adding other key words or removing search terms by
clicking
 .
- Topic or Source: These links let you browse all the
indicators on DataPlace by specific topics or data sources, with
links to subcategories.
For example, selecting the "Housing" link takes us to the "Find
Indicators" pop-up box with a list of all housing-related
indicators in DataPlace. To narrow the search, type
"overcrowding" in the search box. The search results show four
DataPlace indicators related to overcrowding.
Select "Pct. housing units that are overcrowded" and click on
the "add" link to the left of this indicator. That adds the
indicator to the rankings page. After closing the "Find
Indicators" box, you see that the states are ranked in
descending order on the selected indicator, with Hawaii having
the highest overcrowding rate of 15.4 percent. The similar rates
for Hawaii and California are reflected by their red histogram
bars, which fall to the far right. The gap between their rates
and the third highest rate -- Texas, at 9.4 percent -- likewise is
reflected by the gap in the histogram to the right of Texas' red
bar.
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| Changing geographic areas | |
To change the geographic unit on which an indicator is ranked,
go to the "Rank this type of place" drop-down to the right of
the ranking table. From the example above, selecting "County"
from the drop-down refreshes the page to show all counties in
the nation ranked by overcrowding rate. Other geographic areas
available through the drop-down are metropolitan area, city, and
census tract.
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To narrow the geographic scope of the ranking table, go to the
"Choose a different boundary" link to the right of the table.
The "Choose a place" pop-up box appears. Following the example
above, to identify the most overcrowded counties in Nebraska,
select "States" in the pop-up box and then "Nebraska." Finally,
click the "Rank each county within Nebraska" button to refresh
the table so it ranks only counties in Nebraska.
To further narrow the rankings by population limits, go to the
"With minimum population" drop-down to the right of the table.
For example, choosing 50,000 from the drop-down would reduce the
list of overcrowded Nebraska counties to the four counties with
at least 50,000 people.
The "Choose a different boundary" function can also be used to
show where a particular location falls in a larger ranking. From
our example, to find out where Hall County, Nebraska, falls in
the national list on overcrowding rate, click on "Choose a
different boundary" and select "USA" from the breadcrumb at the
top of the pop-up box. Then hit the "Rank each county within the
USA" button. To quickly find Hall County's spot in the national
list, begin typing "Hall County" into the search box at the top
of the screen. The text auto-completer gives a choice of
geographic areas that match what's being typed, ranking those
areas based on population. Hall County, NE, is listed
immediately after a county of the same name in Georgia.
Selecting Hall County, NE, from the auto-complete list takes us
to the page in the overcrowding ranking that contains Hall
County, highlighted in blue. The list shows that Hall County,
NE, ranks 742nd among all counties in the nation.
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| Adding extra indicators to see other rankings for a given area | |
Once you've pinpointed a location's rank on a particular
indicator (such as Hall County, NE, on overcrowding above), you
can quickly see its rank on other indicators. Choose a new
indicator using the links in the yellow "Choose data to show"
box. Selecting an indicator produces a new ranking list and
takes you to the page where the featured location, again
highlighted in blue, falls. In the example below, Hall County,
NE, ranks 1,795th among all counties in the nation by poverty
rate.
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 Available Help Pages
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