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Map shows passport ownership by state
Have you ever heard the statistic that only 10% of Americans have a passport? Well, it turns out that that's a bunch of crap. Fueled by data taken straight from the government's records at data.gov, C.G.P Grey compiled the actual number of passport ownership by state throughout the entire United States. Surprisingly, his findings suggest that over 45% of Americans have passports with residents of New Jersey having the highest percentage at 68%. The state with the lowest percentage of passports? Mississippi. Check out the rest of the statistics in Grey's handy infographic:
Filed under: North America, United States
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
BS Mar 9th 2011 8:41AM
Ummm, sorry to be an ignorant foreigner, but isn't that state clearly marked as the lowest actually Mississippi?
Beth Hollman Mar 9th 2011 12:01PM
Yep...FAIL!! You're not ignorant, Mississippi is the one the map shows as having the least. Embarrassing how few Americans actually know the geography of their own country. Many never leave the state in which they're born...
Grant Martin Mar 9th 2011 10:32AM
You're right -- too much late night blogging. I fixed it up. :)
pbleic Mar 9th 2011 9:59AM
Mississippi is clearly black on the map, and the others less so. The statistics in the link through article show that Louisiana is actually far from the lowest:
LOUISIANA 29.47%
TENNESSEE 28.78%
ARKANSAS 25.14%
ALABAMA 25.03%
KENTUCKY 24.94%
WEST VIRGINIA 20.43%
MISSISSIPPI 19.86%
Stolen Mar 9th 2011 12:26PM
Can everyone just relax, not everyone is perfect like all of you
Guy Rintoul Mar 10th 2011 9:15AM
Re the 10% figure, it's not accurate but my understanding is that is is based in fact. As per this BBC News story along with other reputable sources, until the mid-2000s only about 20% of Americans were believed to have passports. However, this vastly increased once the law changed requiring passports for US citizens travelling to Canada/Mexico - hence the much higher figure now :)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4417473.stm
Wil Mar 12th 2011 12:59PM
Guy said it best. As for someone that lives across from Canada it is still pretty laughable that they require passports to practically go across the street. And yet I'll be getting one soon only for that reason. I'm guessing it's the same for a lot of people that want to travel to Canada or Mexico, you just feel like you have no other choice but to or you just can't visit at all.
chuck Mar 12th 2011 10:42AM
I know several people who have obtained passports in the past year with their rationale being when the U.S. falls over the economic cliff they want to be able to flee the country. When (not if) this country meets its economic Waterloo, the pampered non-producers who have sponged off the government for years will be so irate the violence will be historical.
Steven Mar 12th 2011 11:41AM
The total population of the USA in 2011 is: 310,969,000
How many people of these people hold US Passports? That is how you calculate the true numbers and percentage! This isn't the Electoral College so we can manipulate the outcome of the count.
RRRRR Mar 12th 2011 5:09PM
No one feels safe living the USA. Keep your passport. going anywhere on a plane and being in an airport is a nightmare not a joy anymore.
son58ny Mar 12th 2011 3:48PM
i do use the braille screen on my monitor......but where does it state the black state(under 20%) is anything other then MISSISSIPPI??????
Carolyn Mar 13th 2011 8:57PM
SOMEBODY FIXED THE PROBLEM ALREADY....
klp Mar 12th 2011 3:57PM
Who really cared if Americans did not have passports? Europeans really had a hard time understanding the concept of being able to drive a continent with just a driver's license.(Canada through Mexico) In Europe, you used to have to present your passport every couple of hours. You also usually have to give it to check into a hotel. It was also usually the only picture id, as DL did not have photos for many years.
I was confronted with this statistic many times over the years by my husband's relatives and I always pointed out the obvious to them. It was always fun to watch the light bulb go on in their head.
If you look at the graphic now, you will see that the most passports seem to be in the states that have the most immediate and easy access to Europe and or Asia. The Canadian and Mexican border states seem to be catching up, except you still can get away without the passport if you get the enhanced DL. How about adding in the enhanced DL as part of the statistic, since it gives access to certain foreign countries.
It has always bothered me when I read some apologist bemoaning the lack of passports in the US.
60South Mar 15th 2011 8:58PM
What? Wait.
Grey's blog says he (?) estimated these numbers using the 2000 census numbers, but the data originally comes from *issuance* numbers from state.gov.
That doesn't mean his estimates are wrong, but there is a huge leap from 2000 population numbers and issuance stats to actual ownership. (How many of those issued passports were renewals? How have the state populations changed in the past 10 years?)
Bzzzzzt. I call hogwash... sort of. Proportionally, it's probably fairly representative. But in terms of actual percentages, I don't think so.