Administrative boundaries — counties, tracts, ZIP codes — are convenient, but they're not built for fair comparison: they vary wildly in size and shape, which distorts how density reads on a map. A uniform hexagon grid sidesteps that. Every cell covers the same area, so color and height differences are actually comparable from Bear Lake to St. George.
Building the grid
Population counts from Census 2020 blocks were aggregated to a statewide grid of roughly 50-square-mile hexagons using ArcGIS Pro's Summarize Within tool, with the source blocks pulled from the Utah Geospatial Resource Center (UGRC). Each hexagon's value is a simple areal sum of the block population that falls inside it.
Encoding density twice
The map doubles up on encoding: a graduated color ramp gives a quick statewide read, while 3D extrusion turns population into physical height. The redundancy is deliberate — height makes the outliers (Salt Lake City, West Valley City) genuinely stand up off the page, without the color ramp having to stretch so far that it flattens everywhere else.
What it shows
At a statewide scale, the hexagon grid lets dense urban centers along the Wasatch Front stand out clearly without overshadowing the smaller towns and rural counties around them — the kind of side-by-side comparison that's harder to make honestly with county-level choropleths alone.
Originally created for the “Hexagons” theme of the 2024 #30DayMapChallenge.