Exploring SimplyMap Data: Which US Locations Dine Out the Most?
With over 75,000 variables in SimplyMap, you can find virtually any information you want. This week, we take a look at which U.S. locations spend the most money eating at restaurants or carrying out. Here’s how we did it and what we found.
The variable used was, “Meals at restaurants, carry outs and other (Household Average), 2014.” This variable can be found using this path in SimplyMap: Consumer Expenditure » In 2010 Geographies » Food » Food Away from Home » At Restaurants, Carry-Out, Etc.
Before we rank other geographies, let’s view the nation at large.
This provides a great overview, and we can see that a number of counties, mostly focused in the Northeast and West, lead the way for average household spending on dining out. We can analyze the data further by ranking these counties, using the “Make Ranking from Map” feature, which can be accessed from the Actions menu near the upper right corner of the Map panel.
Selecting, “Make Ranking from Map” yielded the following top 10 counties:
It looks like Loudoun County, VA spends the most amount of money dining out at restaurants in the United States.
Next, we wanted to view the same variable by city. Use the Analyze data by: menu at the top of the report to change the geographic unit to cities (note that you can also choose States, Zip Codes, or even Census Tracts if you want information about a specific local area).
When we switched to city, and applied a data filter to only show cities with more than 50,000 residents (read more about our data filter here), we were left with the following cities:
This information, combined with some additional research in SimplyMap, could be helpful in understanding dining habits in your study area, or even in siting a new business. SimplyMap combines analytical insight from reports like these with the visual impact of compelling maps in your research to help you understand, analyze, and visualize your data.
More from SimplyAnalytics
Posted on May 23, 2012 by Admin
We will be exhibiting at the Special Libraries Association (SLA) annual conference and Info-Expo at McCormick Place in Chicago Sunday June 15th - Tuesday July 17th. Visit us at Booth 124 ...
Posted on Jan 18, 2009 by Admin
Michigan State University is offering their users a basic introduction to using SimplyMap. The 1.5 hour session will cover the basics of how to use SimplyMap to create maps and reports u...
Posted on Jul 14, 2009 by Admin
Men's Health continues to utilize SimplyMap to identify and rank U.S. cities. This time they are studying "sports-obsessed citizenry," and here is how they did it: Our stat showdown began...
Posted on Nov 19, 2019 by Admin
Hello readers! Today we are bringing you a new blog entry inspired by a recent Help Desk question. If you ever have any questions about SimplyAnalytics, please do not hesitate to reach ou...
Posted on May 06, 2016 by Admin
Visit us at booth #775 at the ALA 2016 annual conference to meet the SimplyMap team and learn more about the features and functions behind SimplyMap. Have a Ghirardelli Chocolate while we...
Posted on Jun 02, 2017 by Admin
We can't wait for ALA Annual this Summer, and the opportunity to share SimplyAnalytics with the ALA community. Stop by the SimplyAnalytics booth (1339) and take a peak at what we've been ...
Posted on Apr 18, 2008 by Admin
A team of librarians at Drexel University has developed a detailed poster to introduce SimplyMap as a new research tool for the student body. The poster was launched on Drexel Research Da...
Posted on Oct 27, 2017 by Admin
Welcome to our first ever SimplyAnalytics blog! Every Friday we’ll post a write up on a specific feature or highlight some interesting data in SimplyAnalytics. The goal of these posts is ...
Posted on Mar 02, 2009 by Admin
ACRL's 14th National Conference will be held at the Washington State Trade and Convention Center in downtown Seattle, March 12-15, 2009. Every other year, ACRL offers its premier profe...
Posted on Dec 30, 2009 by Admin
Skokie Public Library, in Skokie, IL has published a useful overview of SimplyMap on the Mike's Space blog on SkokieNet. The article is filled with examples of research questions that can...




