Cartograms turn US population history into a colorful 8-bit experience

Colorful cartograms by the US Census Bureau is like using the visual style of a retro 8-bit video game to learn about population trends, and I love it. Each square equals 50,000 people, but feel free to imagine the squares represent 50,000 Kirbys.

Here's the US population distribution in 2010:

In 1950, California hadn't yet boomed. It's funny to see how relatively big New York is to it and to Texas:

In 1890, the country was about a sixth the size of today's population:

Correction: The correct name of these maps is cartograms, not cartographs.

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