Death Map Shows Areas of U.S. Where Mother Nature is Especially Brutal

By: Diane Tuman, Zillow Content Manager | December 17, 2008

If real estate is about location, location, location, you might want to check out a “death map” that was issued by International Journal of Health Geographics. It shows areas of the U.S. where people have a higher tendency to die due to forces of Mother Nature. In the map above, red means a higher than average risk of dying and blue means a lower risk level.

According to this Reuters article, the #1 killer is heat. That means regions in the South are the deadliest, followed by the northern Great Plains region (heat and drought) and the Rocky Mountain region (Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, Colorado, Utah and New Mexico) where winter weather and floods are the top killers.

The safest areas? Parts of the Midwest or cities in the urbanized Northeast (New York, Boston, Philadelphia, D.C).

(Death map graphic courtesy of FOX News)

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Comments

4 Comments so far

  1. Shawn on December 18, 2008 6:52 am

    This is good but it might have to be cross referenced with a crime and murder rate map…wow, a death map sounds so cheery, you almost don’t want to look.

    http://www.inexpensiveinvestinginflorida.com

    Thanks

  2. Drut Burton on December 18, 2008 6:34 pm

    You should create a Realtor fall out map. Areas that lose the most agents over the next few years. Now that would be fun…

  3. Links Back to the Week That Was 12/21 on December 21, 2008 3:15 pm

    [...] I remember when I was a little girl, asking my dad if there was ANYWHERE in the US where I could live and not have to worry about tornadoes or hurricanes or earthquakes.  Dad shrugged his shoulders and said, “Some corner of Missouri, maybe?”  Well, Dad, this one’s for you. [...]

  4. Eric- New Orleans Condos and Lofts on December 23, 2008 5:40 pm

    It gets hot here but have never heard of anyone dying from heat. Bullets are much more common if you are a drug dealer.

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