Marcus Kazmierczak

Google Earth: US Presidents Birth Places

Date: Feb 11, 2006

I’m currently reading the John Adams biography by David McCullough which is really good. It seems like history has overlooked Adams a little, giving more glory to Jefferson and Washington.

Anyways, as they mentioned where the different people were from I became curious about the distribution of birth places of Presidents. So here's the visual, a Google Earth set of the birth places mapped. I didn't plot them to be very precise, such as the exact coordinates, just the rough city or area.

US_Presidents.kml (right-click Save As...)

A little data:

  • only one President was born in California, Nixon
  • Virginia still reigns supreme with 8 Presidential birthplaces
  • Ohio surprised me with 7 Presidential birthplaces
  • Pennsylvania was also a surprise, but for having only 1
  • Herbert Hoover was the first President born West of the Mississippi, and total only 7 Presidents have been born in the West


You will need: Google Earth to view map.

Data From:
PresidentsUSA.net
AmericanPresidents.org [C-SPAN]