Mapping the Power of Ten

The Powers of Ten is a famous short film by Charles and Ray Eames. The film starts with a top-down shot of two people having a picnic. The camera then zooms out to ten times the distance every ten seconds, so that the field of view is ten times wider every ten seconds. The film starts from one meter above the Earth and zooms out to show the entire universe.

The Powers Map was inspired by the film the Powers of Ten. This interactive map starts showing a random census tract in the USA and then zooms out to show the whole country. As the map slowly zooms out the map displays data from the American Community Survey 5-year estimates.

The map shows the population currently living on the area shown on the map. It estimates the population based on the land area shown and the density of the population. It also shows some other interesting facts from the census, such as the number of people who did not graduate from high school, the number of women with doctorates, the number of people unemployed or the number of people who work in the public sector.