Dystopian Fun! U.S. agency maps 'Hunger Games' districts against real states
If you thought the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics was boring, just look at how pop culturally relevant they've become with their latest blog post.
Although the latest Hunger Games movie came out months ago, the Bureau took its own data on employment (based on industries, occupation, employment numbers and geography) to figure out the eternal question of how the dystopian future country of Panem from the book and film series lines up with the real U.S. geography.
The books (and film adaptations) have made it clear that the 12 "districts" somewhat align with certain states and regions in the current U.S. geographic layout. Ever since the books came out nearly 10 years ago, many maps have attempted to show what Panem looks like.
We have some pretty strong data to back up certain states and regions to districts. Take Hunger Games lead character Katniss Everdeen (played by Jennifer Lawrence in the movies). She lives in the fictional District 12 where jobs are based around coal. Based on the geography (so many hunting in the woods scenes) and weather (winter sounds brutal out there) laid out in the books it seems to be based on America's West Virginia area, or what some refer to as "Coal Country."
Other clues link District 8 to the cotton-growing South. The fancy Capitol is in the Rockies, so that makes it seem like its based on Denver, Colorado, or somewhere nearby.
But what about all the other districts? The Bureau is all about looking at what types of jobs people have in an area to figure out what industries are the main source of income and employment. Using some literary clues from the books and movies, the government data agency was able to pinpoint some strong possibilities of where each district is located.
They even did some math to figure this out. And you can too, they are eager to point out!
Here's the full list of districts and their matching industries. The Bureau presents all this to show that data and stats can actually be fun and can help you figure out fictional countries in your favorite dystopian novels. So they supplied all the employment and industry data for regions that specialize in these Hunger Games-specific skills.
So get going on using government data and map out Panem once and for all. May the odds be ever in your favor.
Topics Books
Sasha is a news writer at Mashable's San Francisco office. She's an SF native who went to UC Davis and later received her master's from the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. She's been reporting out of her hometown over the years at Bay City News (news wire), SFGate (the San Francisco Chronicle website), and even made it out of California to write for the Chicago Tribune. She's been described as a bookworm and a gym rat.
