This plot uses data from National UFO Reporting Center on the number of reported UFO citings in the state of Oregon since 1905. In order to plot the shape of the state including the counties and the correctly fill those counties with the correct UFO data, this plot uses information on the city/county association from http://www.ehealthlink.com/citytocounty.html to plot the shape of the state and fill the counties with the correct information. Latitude and Longitude come from the “Maps::County” data in R.
What you’re seeing:
This plot shows the frequency of UFO observations per county in the state of Oregon. The five counties with the highest number of observations are labeled and, the darker the shade, the more observations there are. You can see that Lane County (Here, where Unviersity of Oregon is!) has the highest number of observations, which is interesting considering it is the second most populous city in Oregon. Following Lane County, the next four counties are all in other areas of the state with larger populations, either around Portland or Salem.
Data visualization changes needed:
Similiar to with the plot showing the UFO citings per state, this information narrative of this plot might be more intuitive/useful if the plot was showing proportion of observations per population as opposed to frequency. Currently, with the plot showing frequency, the data being shown might be more of a function of those areas having more people who are able to report UFO citings and not some phenomenon in relation to the culture of the area (or more unexplainable phenomeon in that area!).
Plot 3B:
This plot also uses data on the county population size from an education resource called “Together we teach” (http://www.togetherweteach.com/TWTIC/uscityinfo/37or/37or.html).
What you’re seeing:
This plot demonstrates that the counties with the highest proportion of observations per county population differ from those that had the highest number of observations without taking into account population size. Interestingly, Lane County is the only county that made it in the Top 5 in both of the plots. The other counties with the highest proportion of observations are either along the coast or in the more remote and rural county of Baker County, which actually has the highest proportion of observations.
Data visualizations needed:
These plots also need to be combined into one plot side-by-side as well change the text describing the county names using library(shadowtext) to be more visible across the county lines.