An unintentionally good example of why choosing colors for choropleth maps can be tricky in terms of making sure the data you are conveying matches visual perce

An unintentionally good example of why choosing colors for choropleth maps can be tricky in terms of making sure the data you are conveying matches visual perception. UT, for example stands out (in later years), even though it has less obesity than states around it. In this case, a single hue changing from light to dark would be more effective. Choropleth maps are an interesting problem because they can be unintentionally quite misleading. In particular, the modifiable areal unit problem is a frequent issue with US maps of population-related data. This is due to the use county boundaries and since counties vary drastically by both size and population, values averaged over a county are sometimes almost meaningless (the classic example is San Bernadino County in CA).