American panorama: A nation of overlapping diasporas [data visualization]

Came across this interactive map / data visualization a while ago:

American panorama: A nation of overlapping diasporas


It was apparently created by people at the Digital Scholarship Lab of the University of Richmond. It's very rich in data, though that also makes it a little confusing.

What's all in there:

The site should open with maps about the state of affairs in 2010.

(1) In the center, you have a map of the United States, showing:

(a) population density - the lighter an area, the greater the population density
(b) the share of foreign-born residents of the population - if an area is more green, their share is greater; if it's more blue, it's smaller.

(2) Around this map, there are maps of other parts of the world. They show what countries the foreign-born population of the US was from in 2010. The greater the bubble, the more people who were born there live in the US. The exact numbers are listed in a table on the right.

(a) If you click such a bubble (or on the name of a country in the table on the right), the map of the US changes to show you how the people from that country are dispersed through the US. Again it shows both the numeric size of that community by place (light) and its percentage (color).

(3) If you click anywhere on the map of the US, it shows you the total size of the foreign-born population in that county, and what countries the foreign-born in that county are from.

(4) Near the bottom, there's a timeline! Ranges from 1850 to 1910. Choose any decade, and the maps above change to show where the immigrants back then were from, where they lived, what percentage of the population they made up.

(a) You can apply all the options under (1)-(3) on the map for any of those past decades as well.