Happy Year of the Sheep: Mapping "Literally" Every Sheep in the United States

The recent blog post by the Washington Post's Christoper Ingraham mapping “Literally every goat in the United States" was interesting in a number of ways. First, it continues the rhetorical trend of making maps (or at least claiming to make maps) that include everything.

If nothing else, it provides a compelling example of the current cultural capital value of "big data" in society. This is an interesting cultural moment in popular cartography, since the fundamental task of maps is abstracting and representing. And even the map that supposed showed "every goat" was actually a representation with each dot on the map standing in for 500 goats.

Secondly, we very much doubt that any map produced by the USDA Agricultural Census has ever received this much attention in the history of the agency.

Thirdly, why are the goats getting all the press? After all, isn't this the year of the sheep according to the Chinese zodiac [1]?  This is not the way Pan, god of shepherds, meant it to be. 

So being the ovis-chauvinists we are, we wanted to point out that there are actually twice as many sheep as goats in the US, and so the sheep population could probably take the goat population if it ever came down to hand to hand (or hoof to hoof) combat.

Also the USDA has made some fascinating interesting maps of sheep. Not baaaaaad.

Every Sheep in America

The USDA's Agricultural Census found that there were 5,364,844 sheep in the US in 2012. California was the sheepiest state in the USA with 668,517 sheep. However, Weld County, Colorado is the sheepiest county in the USA with 204,694 sheep reported in 2012. That's more sheep than Alaska, Delaware, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts, South Carolina, Mississippi, New Jersey, Florida, Vermont, Arkansas, Maryland and Alabama put together. Go Weld County [2]! We don't know about you, but we're booking our tickets and hotels to go visit ASAP.

However, Van Zandt County, Texas had the most valuable sheep compared to other crops with 68.38% of total market value of agricultural products sold originated from sheep, goats and their products (milk, wool, etc.). We've also found that the map of every sheep in the US opens up many perceptual rivalries with optical illusions hidden within. Yes, we are comparing our map to the illustrations of Sandro Del Prete. Please comment on this post--what do you see in the illustrations? The profile image of a lady in a bonnet? A man's naughty bits? A sheep?

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 [1] We are aware of the sheep/goat confusion, but come down firmly on the side of the sheep.
 [2] Read more about Weld's extraordinary sheep processing.

Crop Circles or Dots o' Crops?

What began as an effort to understand the representation of agricultural production in Google Maps placemarks has become an exercise in how much the world loves coffee, tobacco and oranges [1].


Apparently a lot. Or at least a way lot more than they like soybeans. Especially China where the entire country seems awash in a jittery caffeine spill that is slowly seeping down into Southeast Asia.

Of course, the fact that we didn't include rice in our search terms makes these results problematic to say the least. Sigh. I'd like to blame Taylor for this one, but I think that this was my list. Still what's the point of being a grad student if you don't get stuck with the blame? Right?

Still there are some interesting patterns, especially in the English speaking world. In Australia for example, one can see clusters of sugar cane references in the Northeast tropical region surround Cairns where sugar cane is an important crop. The bands of coffee around the coast (and over New Zealand) are no doubt referencing to the drinking of said crop rather than the growing.

Likewise, when we pare down the nine crops to the four which are actually produced in quantity in the U.S. -- corn, wheat, soybeans and tobacco – some intriguing patterns emerge [2]. The tobacco producing regions of Kentucky and the Carolinas emerge and there is clear a transition from corn to wheat as one moves westward and northward. Just as exists in the material world

Next post, we'll take a closer look at some of the other regions of the world (Latin America, Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia) that also have some interesting distributions of references to crops. Particularly since these places often have very few placemarks at all….stay tuned.

[1] As in previous maps, each location is colored according to which search term in Google Maps produced the highest number of results.

[2] OK, we ditched oranges as well since there is clearly a color related issue. Why can't it be called something distinctive like Apelsin (the word for oranges in Estonian) that would remove any confusion. After all, Apelsin doesn't seem like any other common fruit name! Right?

Sheep Happens: Finding the "Big Six" of the Farmyard

It should come as no surprise (given the name of this blog) that we're a bit fond of sheep (hey, but not in that way). In that vein, we thought it would interesting to see if the rest of the world shares this predilection.

So, harkening back to the range wars of the American west we searched for the terms chicken, cow, goat, horse, pig and sheep. These animals were selected primarily by what showed up in my daughter's Old McDonald Had a Farm book (this is known more formally as consulting an indigenous source). Although not quite as charismatic as the "big six" of safaris (e.g., elephants, rhinos, lions, cheetahs, hippos and giraffes), the "big six" of livestock makes up for it with our ability to imitate the animal sounds. I challenge anyone to do a giraffe call right now…anyone? I thought as much.

In any case, the distribution of the "big six" at the global level is shown below. Right away we can see that "horse" (in yellow dots) cuts a wide swath through the world; a powerfully pedantic plethora of plentiful placemarks ponyness! Although I'm not quite sure what that last phrase means. Sometimes alliteration wins out over sensibility (I'd apologize but you knew what you were getting into by reading this blog).


Chickens (green dots) seem to be doing OK at the global level, but we fear for the sheep. At a whole range of levels. After all, they were the unwitting (albeit idiot) chorus that drowned out any rational conversation in Orwell's Animal Farm. Hmmm…some interesting parallels with modern politics.

Luckily, the expected center of sheep, the veritable stronghold of storied sheepiness - New Zealand - is well represented with a wooly covering of orange dots. Australia (at least when you get away from the beaches) is not doing too bad either; apparently wool is not what the Aussies wear at the ocean.


The United States replicates the global pattern of horses and chicken. Since the U.S. headquarters of Floatingsheep is surrounded by thoroughbred farms and a mere hour north of the birthplace of Kentucky Fried Chicken, we interpret this as a sign that Kentucky's plans for world domination are well in hand. Just you wait.


We are also relieved to see that the U.S. has a few pockets of sheep out west, but clearly the cows and pigs never had a chance. And the less said about goats, the better.

The most interesting distribution, however, is within Europe which, despite being a very horsey place, still represents a fine figure of fascinating farmyard frontiers. Firstly, we must note the goodly concentration of sheep in Wales and Scotland; no surprise there, but heartening nonetheless. More startling is the popularity of sheep in France (including the island of Corsica). Who knew that amidst the foie gras, frog legs and escargot that such love of sheep was buried?


Alas, the news is not all good, for the pigs have secured a beachhead on Brittany with a thin powerful column heading directly towards the heart of France. What's more, the well established German pig passage (perambulating from Hamburg to Dusseldorf) appears poised to pierce the protective pockets of French Sheepdom!

So sadly, while we cannot foresee (ahem) flights of sheep everywhere, the pigs have not gained controlled as of yet! Sheep of the world, Unite! You have nothing to lose but your fleece!

Beasts of England, Beasts of France-land,
Beasts of every land and clime,
Hearken to my joyful tidings
Of the Golden future time.

Soon or late the day is coming,
Tyrant Pig shall be o'er thrown,
And the fruitful fields of our lands
Shall be trod by sheep alone.*

* Apologies to George Orwell.