Some interesting trends...
- Areas with high Hispanic, Native, or Mormon populations are younger than the national median
- Almost all New England counties are older than the national median
- Sumter County FL (oldest county) is home to the Villages - a massive retirement community
- Virginia has some very young areas I can't explain
For VA; Independent cities with small populations that also have universities in them.
This functions to sort the young from the old in quite a few VA locales when presented like this.
Yeah for a lot of the midwest it appears to be pretty heavily influenced by universities. Like in Michigan you can basically see where CMU, MSU, WMU, UofM/EMU, and michigan tech are.
For virginia it may be universities skewing the data. Some counties don't have much going on aside from their college. For the beach there's a huge navy presence which can also affect the data.
Nice catch. I'm guessing that that explains the random counties in SW Virginia that are dark green. OP mixed up the numbers and the counties/cities those numbers go to, and the numbers for those young college towns got applied to the wrong counties.
For Loudoun County (NOVA) Young people that get hired to work for the government start off making a lot of money so they can have kids earlier which means they can have more children.
Atleast thats what I noticed, a lot of young parents who make a lot of money driving suburbans full of all of their kids.
Nice place to live too.
The southeaster part of VA (norfolk/Virginia Beach) is home to one of the largest naval bases. Tons of kids fresh out of high school with big kid jobs. Everyone is married with a kid and retired by 25 lol
One notable exception I found was Furnas County, Nebraska. On the bottom of the state line, fourth from the left. Only 5% of their population is between 18 and 24, yet 25% is under 18.
The three counties I've lived in (two different states) all look correct to me. One of the counties has a major US university and not much else in it, which skewed the median age significantly downward. The county I grew up in had mostly older people, not of childbearing age and there were few opportunities. Most young people left as soon as possible, so the median age was quite high. This is evident on this map.
It's interesting, because each of these counties likely has a story behind how and why the age is what it is.
As someone who’s lived in LA and San Diego counties, I’m surprised that there are some US counties with only one university. I thought all counties were huge and consisted of a bunch of cities and towns.
The MS 9th place youngest county is 100% due to Mississippi state university and how like 75% of the rentals are all student housing.
- I live 30 mins away from Starkville, MS not shocked seeing this as most older people live outside of metro type areas here
For the most part yes - smaller towns with a large university will make a significant portion of the population college aged.
Mormons and Hispanic Americans also have more children, which explains the green in Utah/South Idado (mormon) and the Southwest, California and Washington (Hispanic).
The youngest county-equivalents in Alaska all have substantial Native American majorities. People living out there have a lot of children. The same is true of other Native-majority counties as well.
My wife was trying to think of a word for where you go with terminal illness and asked me "what's that place where you go to die?".
So I said, "do you mean Florida?"
The counties seem to be mixed up in Virginia. The map doesn't match the lists of oldest and youngest counties at all, and, looking at the specific counties, it's pretty clearly wrong.
Edit: I think it's funny that this is being downvoted. Here's a different visualization of median age by county that is correct (and matches the list of oldest and youngest counties). Notice that the map of Virginia shows completely different counties being old and young.
[https://www.visualcapitalist.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/median-age-us-counties.html](https://www.visualcapitalist.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/median-age-us-counties.html)
This looks wrong. The counties next to college towns are young and the college towns themselves are higher in VA. I think codes got mixed up at some point.
Can anyone explain all the young people in southwest Virginia, I've always thought that part of Virginia was aging because all the coal jobs are leaving
That's West Virginia the state, in any case, assuming it's similar circunstances. Poorer people tend to have more children and they do have a stronger state economy to help them out.
That being said, I've absolutely no idea what I'm talking about or what could possibly be causing such youth in that specific area, nor do I know what's going on there.
The map is wrong. There's nothing to explain. Southwest Virginia *is* old, but not necessarily because of the decline of coal. There's just no economic activity in the mountains.
I used to live and work in southwest VA. It’s heavily skewed by the universities being a big population center in an otherwise pretty sparsely populated area. Radford University is the reason why radford is on the “youngest” list because it’s a small city with not much there but the college. Virginia Tech is also out there in Montgomery county. Students sometimes live in neighboring counties as well to save on living costs.
Another point to this is that there is a lot of manufacturing out there in SW VA. It’s not all coal out there. Most of the coal jobs are in West Virginia.
They really missed the target on my county (Benton county Oregon). It’s green, but should be purple. It’s a college town so a good portion lives in student housing. If you migrate out from campus, where the locals that are permanent residents live, the average & I’m sure median age due to distribution, is 68. The amount of seniors is an on going joke to us “young” people that live in established neighborhoods.
I wondered what was up with that cluster of green in north-east Nebraska. Turns out there are two reservations there (Omaha Reservation and Winnebago Reservation). Same story with North and South Dakota.
The reservations are basically just in Thurston County. The county to the west of that has a university (Wayne State College) and the one to the north has a large Hispanic population.
For some reason I would have thought that Florida would stick out like a sore thumb. I'm also somewhat surprised by how young the state of Utah is. Is it all the Mormons with their 23 kids per family, or is it net migration of youngsters from out of state?
Also, what's going on up at the Great Lakes, is it a geriatrics convention or something?
The darkest green county in Indiana is Tippecanoe, home of Purdue University. The other green Indiana counties are mostly home to other universities or areas with large Amish or Hispanic populations.
The answer is mostly Native Americans. The low median age is driven by lots of children more so than young adults with oil jobs (at least outside the North Slope Borough).
Missouri is interesting. The darkest green in the center of the state is very rural and is also the location of Ft. Leonard Wood (Army) and the Mark Twain National Forest. To the left, in the dark purple are the counties of the Lake of the Ozarks where there are many vacation homes and people in the state retire to. The remaining lighter greens are the bigger cities and universities.
This is wildly more variable than I'd have expected it to be.
Same. I was worried it'd all be within like 5 years of age and a boring map
Greatly corresponds with locations of colleges for my state.
Same here. Mississippi.
Some interesting trends... - Areas with high Hispanic, Native, or Mormon populations are younger than the national median - Almost all New England counties are older than the national median - Sumter County FL (oldest county) is home to the Villages - a massive retirement community - Virginia has some very young areas I can't explain
For VA; Independent cities with small populations that also have universities in them. This functions to sort the young from the old in quite a few VA locales when presented like this.
Yeah for a lot of the midwest it appears to be pretty heavily influenced by universities. Like in Michigan you can basically see where CMU, MSU, WMU, UofM/EMU, and michigan tech are.
Virginia's weird at least in part because it has independent cities - it looks like the cities are young and the surrounding counties are older.
Yep Virginia is often times funky with county level data due to nearly every decent sized city being classified as an “independent city”
It's mostly college towns that show up as young.
OK, that makes sense - I don’t know Virginia.
For virginia it may be universities skewing the data. Some counties don't have much going on aside from their college. For the beach there's a huge navy presence which can also affect the data.
Very much this. Radford University in Radford, Washington & Lee University in Lexington, and James Madison University in Harrisonburg.
Virginia Beach is not young. The map is wrong. Radford, Harrisonburg, and Lexington are all shown as old on the map.
Nice catch. I'm guessing that that explains the random counties in SW Virginia that are dark green. OP mixed up the numbers and the counties/cities those numbers go to, and the numbers for those young college towns got applied to the wrong counties.
Hello young Utah!
Went to radford university. The university is basically the whole town.
For Loudoun County (NOVA) Young people that get hired to work for the government start off making a lot of money so they can have kids earlier which means they can have more children. Atleast thats what I noticed, a lot of young parents who make a lot of money driving suburbans full of all of their kids. Nice place to live too.
The southeaster part of VA (norfolk/Virginia Beach) is home to one of the largest naval bases. Tons of kids fresh out of high school with big kid jobs. Everyone is married with a kid and retired by 25 lol
This is the right answer. You also have a decent presence from the Air Force, Marine Corps, and Army here in the Hampton Roads area.
Rural military bases show up as green dots in several places.
Live in Hampton Roads. Virginia Beach is known for being really good for families to live in.
You can also see the oil and gas fields in Texas and New Mexico skew younger. Preman Basin and Eagle Ford.
The darkest green county in the Permian Basin also has a significant Mennonite population.
Madison County, Idaho is where BYU-Idaho is located. Droves of Mormons having lots of little Mormons.
This looks pretty skewed by college towns.
And military bases. Camp Lejeune makes Onslow County the youngest in North Carolina
Yep - large military bases in otherwise small-population counties brings down the average age considerably.
BYU is in Utah County UT, and BYU-Idaho is in Madison county ID. They’re each top of their respective young median age list.
One notable exception I found was Furnas County, Nebraska. On the bottom of the state line, fourth from the left. Only 5% of their population is between 18 and 24, yet 25% is under 18.
The three counties I've lived in (two different states) all look correct to me. One of the counties has a major US university and not much else in it, which skewed the median age significantly downward. The county I grew up in had mostly older people, not of childbearing age and there were few opportunities. Most young people left as soon as possible, so the median age was quite high. This is evident on this map. It's interesting, because each of these counties likely has a story behind how and why the age is what it is.
As someone who’s lived in LA and San Diego counties, I’m surprised that there are some US counties with only one university. I thought all counties were huge and consisted of a bunch of cities and towns.
Have you ever checked the number of counties in Iowa? It has the same number of people (3.2 million) as San Diego Co.
Is there only one university in the Iowa county of 3.2M people?
The MS 9th place youngest county is 100% due to Mississippi state university and how like 75% of the rentals are all student housing. - I live 30 mins away from Starkville, MS not shocked seeing this as most older people live outside of metro type areas here
Brit here, are the youngest counties a result of colleges/universities?
For the most part yes - smaller towns with a large university will make a significant portion of the population college aged. Mormons and Hispanic Americans also have more children, which explains the green in Utah/South Idado (mormon) and the Southwest, California and Washington (Hispanic).
I am surprised Alaska is on the younger side, labor intense oil/gas jobs? Or something else? Nice map.
The youngest county-equivalents in Alaska all have substantial Native American majorities. People living out there have a lot of children. The same is true of other Native-majority counties as well.
Maybe O&G jobs + harsh environment and lack of access to health care
My wife was trying to think of a word for where you go with terminal illness and asked me "what's that place where you go to die?". So I said, "do you mean Florida?"
The counties seem to be mixed up in Virginia. The map doesn't match the lists of oldest and youngest counties at all, and, looking at the specific counties, it's pretty clearly wrong. Edit: I think it's funny that this is being downvoted. Here's a different visualization of median age by county that is correct (and matches the list of oldest and youngest counties). Notice that the map of Virginia shows completely different counties being old and young. [https://www.visualcapitalist.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/median-age-us-counties.html](https://www.visualcapitalist.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/median-age-us-counties.html)
Why isn't Harris County in the city list (and what is its median age)?
The median age of Harris county is 34. Ya the list of big cities is very random.
This looks wrong. The counties next to college towns are young and the college towns themselves are higher in VA. I think codes got mixed up at some point.
Can anyone explain all the young people in southwest Virginia, I've always thought that part of Virginia was aging because all the coal jobs are leaving
Universities; Radford University, Virginia Tech, Washington & Lee in Lexington, JMU in Harrisonburg. Not much else in these places.
I was more curious about the green that was further down 81 than Radford and VT, closer to Tennessee
The median age of Scott County is ~41. It is not actually <25.
That's West Virginia the state, in any case, assuming it's similar circunstances. Poorer people tend to have more children and they do have a stronger state economy to help them out. That being said, I've absolutely no idea what I'm talking about or what could possibly be causing such youth in that specific area, nor do I know what's going on there.
That's not West Virginia, which is almost uniformly older than the national median.
The map is wrong. There's nothing to explain. Southwest Virginia *is* old, but not necessarily because of the decline of coal. There's just no economic activity in the mountains.
I used to live and work in southwest VA. It’s heavily skewed by the universities being a big population center in an otherwise pretty sparsely populated area. Radford University is the reason why radford is on the “youngest” list because it’s a small city with not much there but the college. Virginia Tech is also out there in Montgomery county. Students sometimes live in neighboring counties as well to save on living costs. Another point to this is that there is a lot of manufacturing out there in SW VA. It’s not all coal out there. Most of the coal jobs are in West Virginia.
OP mixed up the percentages and counties. Check out the county-equivalents on the youngest counties list, they all show up as older on the map.
I would be interested seeing this map paired with voting results by county map for 2022
It's basically an employment map. People move where jobs are during peak earning years.
They really missed the target on my county (Benton county Oregon). It’s green, but should be purple. It’s a college town so a good portion lives in student housing. If you migrate out from campus, where the locals that are permanent residents live, the average & I’m sure median age due to distribution, is 68. The amount of seniors is an on going joke to us “young” people that live in established neighborhoods.
Should 18-22 year olds not be counted as people?
I wondered what was up with that cluster of green in north-east Nebraska. Turns out there are two reservations there (Omaha Reservation and Winnebago Reservation). Same story with North and South Dakota.
The reservations are basically just in Thurston County. The county to the west of that has a university (Wayne State College) and the one to the north has a large Hispanic population.
It’s a map for college towns.
For some reason I would have thought that Florida would stick out like a sore thumb. I'm also somewhat surprised by how young the state of Utah is. Is it all the Mormons with their 23 kids per family, or is it net migration of youngsters from out of state? Also, what's going on up at the Great Lakes, is it a geriatrics convention or something?
The darkest green county in Indiana is Tippecanoe, home of Purdue University. The other green Indiana counties are mostly home to other universities or areas with large Amish or Hispanic populations.
The color of Sarasota County is wrong. It’s listed on the right as the oldest county over 250k at 57.5, but it’s colored with the 44-49 color.
I wonder if this is a predictor of change in property value
I was going to ask wtf Alaska has that northern Michigan doesn't but I feel like the answer is oil
The answer is mostly Native Americans. The low median age is driven by lots of children more so than young adults with oil jobs (at least outside the North Slope Borough).
I’m the national median age…. And I live in a county that I am in the median age. What an average and boring life I lead…
Looks like the green would match a map of where universities are located
Yeah, Riley County, KS: K-State, and Fort Riley right up the road.
Missouri is interesting. The darkest green in the center of the state is very rural and is also the location of Ft. Leonard Wood (Army) and the Mark Twain National Forest. To the left, in the dark purple are the counties of the Lake of the Ozarks where there are many vacation homes and people in the state retire to. The remaining lighter greens are the bigger cities and universities.
Why those two counties in the UP?
Michigan Tech possibly?
CORRECTION: Leon County, TX isn’t even close to 250K population. Actually 15,719 in 2020 census.