A remedial Sunday school lesson:

The seven deadly sins (for those who don't concern themselves with such things and/or have never seen that creepy Brad Pitt movie) are, in no particular order: wrath, envy, greed, gluttony, sloth, lust and pride.

Seeking to discover where in America those sins are most prevalent, a group of geographers from Kansas State University did some research using data on things such as number of fast food restaurants per capita (gluttony), number of thefts and robberies (envy), and average incomes compared with the number of inhabitants living beneath the poverty line (greed).

The maps originally were created in 2009, but recently popped up again thanks to a blog at memolition.



Here are a few examples, starting with wrath. Red indicates higher rates of violent crimes per capita. Blue indicates lower rates. The southeast and central California look particularly bad. Those seeking a peaceful (if chilly) life would do well to move to North Dakota.

Here's gluttony. Researchers looked at the number of fast food restaurants per capita. Love cheap burgers? Virgina and North Carolina are apparently the places to be.

Perhaps most interesting is the map on greed, which compares average incomes with the number of people living below the poverty line.

Click here for more sinful maps as well as information on the methodology.



Follow Mike Krumboltz on Twitter at @mikekrumboltz.