SPATIAL HETEROGENEITY OF THE US TERRITORY: AN ETHNOGEOGRAPHICAL FACTOR

Abstract

The US population, formed by the descendants of immigrants, is characterized by extreme ethnogeographic diversity. This
diversity has pronounced spatial differentiation, which has been repeatedly examined in geographical studies of the US population. At the same
time, despite the large number of such studies, differentiation of territories according to the ethnogeographic composition of the population has not
been carried out. The purpose of this study is to classify the territory of the United States according to the ethnogeographic composition of the
population and to reveal spatial changes that occurred from 2000 to 2020. The analysis was carried out at the county level with 12 ethnogeographic
groups taken as examples (Americans, African Americans, Mexicans, English, French, Irish, Germans, Italians, Poles, Russians, Chinese, and
Asian Indians). To identify types of the US territory, a cluster analysis (k-means algorithm) was conducted. As a result, 13 ethnogeographical types
of the US territory were identified and characterized. The largest cluster in terms of area in 2020 turned out to have no clearly defined ethnogeographic dominant in the population. In general, this feature is typical for more than a third of the territory of the United States. A comparison of
data for 2000 and 2020 showed that the greatest change in the ethnogeographic composition was experienced by the Southern States, where there
was a significant reduction in the share of people of American ancestry in the total population. The territorial clusters obtained as a result of the
study can be used to assess other characteristics of the population that US statistics do not consider separately for ethnogeographic groups.