Racial Dot Map

This map reveals the racial makeup of cities across the country, visualizing trends such as segregation and density. A researcher with the the University of Virginia's Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service, modeled the project on a previous MIT map plotting population density by individual dots. This version color-codes the results by race and ethnicity, producing an eerily beautiful picture of American segregation (and, less frequently, integration) that tricks the eye at different scales. At most zoom levels, each dot is smaller than a pixel, and so the blended colors from afar are "aggregations of many individual dots," with people represented by the color scheme at right. Looking at the entire country, most of the patches that aren't blue correspond to colorfully smudged urban areas. Many of those metro areas look purple from a distance until, like with this picture of Phoenix, you zoom in closer and colors break apart. The city is diverse from a distance, but quite segregated at the neighborhood and even block level. In 2025, after the original map went offline, Luke Loreti put together the updated map, using 2020 Census data.