McDonald’s Locations vs. Golf Courses

When I linked to a recent NY Times article about rewilding golf courses, I pulled out this startling fact: “The United States has more golf courses than McDonald’s locations.” Nathan Yau of FlowingData found that that is indeed true but wondered where all of the golf courses were actually located. (A: typically not in cities where the McDonald’s are concentrated).

This makes more sense now. You can have a golf course in an area where there aren’t that many people, because people will travel to play golf. Few people are going to travel specifically for McDonald’s.

If we compare the two, you see the McDonald’s city concentrations, and golf fills the in-between spaces.

• golf
• infoviz
• maps
• McDonald's
• Nathan Yau
• USA