The rankings, released Wednesday, show the counties where residents enjoy higher-than-average health have better access to healthy foods, parks and exercise facilities, where doctors are plentiful and the air is cleaner. Unhealthy atmospheres can lead to lower-than-average graduation rates, higher obesity and denser, more expensive housing conditions (Find the complete report, along with downloadable data, here).

Out of those 30-plus criteria, here are the 10 maps that best illustrate where Americans are healthiest, and why:

The healthiest air is found mostly in California and southern Oregon. The least healthy air, with particulate rates more than twice that of the healthiest counties, is found in rural Tennessee and Kentucky.

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Counties with the lowest air particulate matter

State County Average daily PM25 California Sonoma 7.2 California Lake 7.2 California Monterey 7.2 California Santa Barbara 7.2 California Mendocino 7.3 California San Luis Obispo 7.5 California Marin 7.5 California Colusa 7.6 California Napa 7.6 California Orange 7.6

Counties with the highest air particulate matter

State County Average daily PM25 Tennessee Williamson 14.5 Tennessee Cheatham 14.6 Kentucky Trigg 14.6 Tennessee Montgomery 14.6 Tennessee Hickman 14.6 Tennessee Dickson 14.7 Tennessee Stewart 14.7 Tennessee Benton 14.8 Tennessee Houston 14.8 Tennessee Humphreys 14.9

Fewer Middle Americans tend to report fair or poor health than those in other states. Just 4 percent of Blaine County, Neb., residents described themselves as in fair or poor health, the lowest rate in the country. On the other end of the spectrum, more than half of those in Hickory County, Mo., and Limestone Co., Texas, said their health was fair or poor (A word of caution: Almost 400 counties didn’t submit enough data to be ranked).

Counties reporting the lowest percentage of fair/poor health

State County Pct fair/poor health Nebraska Blaine 4 Kansas Cheyenne 5 Iowa Mitchell 5 Kansas Smith 5 South Dakota Clay 5 Utah Morgan 5 Iowa Cedar 5 Iowa Winneshiek 5 North Dakota Griggs 5 Ohio Geauga 6

Counties reporting the highest percentage of fair/poor health

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State County Pct fair/poor health Kentucky Floyd 38 North Carolina Greene 38 Kentucky Owsley 38 Alabama Chambers 39 Kentucky Magoffin 39 Missouri Dent 39 Kentucky McCreary 41 Tennessee Scott 46 Texas Limestone 50 Missouri Hickory 51

The highest rates of obesity are found in the South, while the lowest obesity rates occur almost exclusively in the Mountain West. The lone exceptions: Marin County, Calif., and Manhattan.

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Counties reporting lowest obesity rates

State County Obesity rate Wyoming Teton 13 Colorado Eagle 13 Colorado Routt 13 New Mexico Santa Fe 14 Colorado Pitkin 14 Colorado Summit 15 Colorado Boulder 15 Utah Summit 15 California Marin 15 New York New York 16

Counties reporting highest obesity rates

State County Obesity rate Mississippi Wilkinson 42 South Carolina Williamsburg 43 Mississippi Noxubee 44 Alabama Lowndes 44 Mississippi Sunflower 44 North Dakota Sioux 44 South Dakota Ziebach 45 Mississippi Jefferson 45 Mississippi Coahoma 47 Alabama Greene 48

Not surprisingly, the counties with ample access to exercise facilities are less likely to end up high on the obesity list, while more rural counties lack sufficient exercise options. Twenty counties, ranging from rural Georgia, Texas, South Carolina, North Dakota, Kentucky and Oklahoma, have no exercise facilities. Fifty-one counties in states all over the country — though mostly in urban areas — have enough facilities to give everyone access.

Highly-educated, wealthier counties, ranging from the Washington suburbs of Falls Church City and Loudon County, Va., to Los Alamos, N.M., have the lowest number of children in poverty. Southern rural counties, mainly in Mississippi, have the highest percentages. In the most extreme case, children in Dallas County, Ala., are 20 times more likely to be impoverished than children in Falls Church City.

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Counties with the lowest child poverty percentages

State County Pct of children in poverty Virginia Falls Church City 3 New Mexico Los Alamos 4 Colorado Douglas 4 Virginia Loudoun 4 New Jersey Hunterdon 5 Minnesota Carver 5 New Jersey Morris 5 Illinois Monroe 6 Indiana Hamilton 6 South Dakota Lincoln 6

Counties with the highest child poverty percentages

State County Pct of children in poverty Mississippi Leflore 55 Mississippi Quitman 55 Mississippi Washington 55 Mississippi Holmes 56 Mississippi Humphreys 57 Kentucky Owsley 57 Mississippi Sharkey 58 Mississippi Sunflower 58 Louisiana Madison 59 Alabama Dallas 60

High poverty, bad air and high obesity rates translate to premature deaths. The National Center for Health Statistics measures what it calls the years of potential life lost — the years before age 75 that residents pass away. Again, Southern states are more likely to have higher YPLL numbers. But the most extreme outliers are all in rural counties in North and South Dakota.

Lowest years of potential life lost

State County YPLL Nebraska Polk 2950 Texas Presidio 3136 Virginia Loudoun 3290 Colorado Eagle 3517 Minnesota Yellow Medicine 3536 South Dakota Lincoln 3588 North Dakota Dickey 3592 Virginia Fairfax 3617 Colorado Douglas 3622 New Jersey Somerset 3680

Highest years of potential life lost

State County YPLL Mississippi Quitman 17823 Alaska Wade Hampton 18391 Georgia Clay 19240 Montana Roosevelt 19937 North Dakota Benson 20202 South Dakota Todd 20965 South Dakota Corson 21217 South Dakota Buffalo 23312 South Dakota Shannon 23851 North Dakota Sioux 24668

A healthy life begins at birth, and counties in the Mountain West and Great Plains states registered the lowest number of low-weight babies — which the National Center for Health Statistics defines as live births less than 2,500 grams. Much higher percentages of underweight babies are born in Southern states, with Georgia and Mississippi dominating the bottom 10.

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Counties with lowest low-birthweight percentages

State County Pct LBW Idaho Boundary 2.9 Nebraska Cedar 3.3 Washington San Juan 3.8 Minnesota Lac qui Parle 4.0 Iowa Davis 4.1 Iowa Jefferson 4.1 Iowa Osceola 4.2 Alaska Valdez-Cordova 4.2 South Dakota Hamlin 4.3 Minnesota Wilkin 4.3

Counties with highest low-birthweight percentages

State County Pct LBW Alabama Greene 16.0 Mississippi Issaquena 16.0 Georgia Randolph 16.1 Georgia Talbot 16.3 Mississippi Tallahatchie 16.3 Mississippi Claiborne 16.8 Mississippi Jefferson 16.8 Georgia Terrell 17.0 Georgia Webster 17.1 Mississippi Coahoma 17.6

Here’s one area where broad regional differences are muted, but where racial divides become clear: The counties with the lowest percentages of 9th graders who graduate from high school in four years are, broadly speaking, counties with heavy Native American populations, which are experiencing a drop-out crisis far worse than the rest of the country. Four counties, three of them in Oklahoma, graduated all of their 9th graders in four years, though only one county that graduated more than 95 percent of its 9th graders had sample sizes larger than 1,000.

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Counties with the highest 4-year graduation rates for 9th graders

State County Graduation rate Tennessee Stewart 98 Tennessee Trousdale 98 Texas Titus 98 Texas Kendall 98 Texas Chambers 99 Kentucky Livingston 99 Idaho Madison 100 Oklahoma Dewey 100 Oklahoma McClain 100 Oklahoma Cimarron 100

Counties with the lowest 4-year graduation rates for 9th graders

State County Graduation rate Colorado Sedgwick 17 Idaho Butte 24 Kansas Kiowa 26 Oklahoma Osage 27 South Dakota Shannon 29 Georgia Union 37 Florida Jefferson 38 Alaska Bethel 41 Georgia Crawford 43 South Dakota Todd 43

Boroughs of Alaska experience a higher instance of sexually transmitted disease cases than other counties, as measured by the number of chlamydia infections per 100,000 people. Infection rates in low-population Alaska boroughs is nearly 1,000 times higher than in smaller rural counties in states like Indiana, Utah and Minnesota.

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Lowest STD rate per 100,000 residents

State County STD rate Indiana Pulaski 37 California Mariposa 39 Indiana Brown 40 Utah Morgan 41 Minnesota Marshall 42 Kentucky Morgan 43 Minnesota Meeker 43 Wisconsin Vernon 43 Nebraska Cedar 46 Idaho Madison 48

Highest STD rate per 100,000 residents

State County STD rate Mississippi Tunica 1,797 Virginia Petersburg City 1,859 South Dakota Todd 1,884 South Dakota Shannon 1,989 South Dakota Corson 2,014 Alaska Nome 2,131 South Dakota Dewey 2,140 Alaska Bethel 2,222 Alaska Wade Hampton 2,702 Alaska Northwest Arctic 2,754

There are less obvious indications of good qualities of life too, like proximity to work. The study’s authors point out that longer commutes equate to more stress, which means lower quality of life for the percentage of drivers who commute 30 minutes or longer by themselves every day. That’s good news for residents of Alaska’s more far-flung boroughs — there aren’t enough roads to drive more than 30 minutes to work — and bad news for exurban and rural residents who commute in to cities.

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Counties with the largest percentage of long-commute drivers

State County Long commute drivers Kentucky Spencer 63 Georgia Paulding 64 Texas San Jacinto 64 Maryland Charles 64 Virginia Charles City 65 Kentucky Robertson 66 Virginia Amelia 66 North Carolina Gates 66 Colorado Park 67 Colorado Elbert 71

Counties with the lowest percentage of long-commute drivers