In today’s number news (State-by-state cremation rates in U.S.), we learn that “slightly more than a third of all persons who died in 2006 were cremated, according to the Cremation Association of North America.” Happily, the article contained the raw data, but only as an alphabetical-by-state table of numbers.

Here’s an illumination, as MapPoint is my amanuensis. Click to embiggen.

Deaths2006 

Explanation: Pie areas are proportional to the number of deaths; the yellow slice is cremations, the red non-cremations.

Pies for our nation’s two newest states are not shown. Alaska’s looks like a two-thirds size Vermont pie; Hawai’i’s looks like a one-third size Oregon pie.