Deserts In The U.S.

Based on information collected from the census, the USDA has made an interactive online map to visualize food deserts.

A food desert is a rural or urban area where at least 20 percent of the residents live in poverty and 33 percent of the people live without a supermarket or large grocery store nearby. Most must rely on corner stores that don't always carry nutritious food or they must travel by car to shop. According to this map, about 13.5 million people have "low access" to stores that sell healthy food.

The USDA says that this map will help officials pinpoint areas that have low access to healthy food in their efforts to "expand the availability of nutritious food."

This interactive map was made available to the public thanks to initiatives of Michelle Obama's Let's Move! campaign, which advocates to make healthy food accessible for everyone.

Where You Live, Where You Shop

The map shows that the number of food deserts increase in the west and southwest part of the country. New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado, and Utah have some of the largest food deserts, while other states like Nebraska, Kansas, South Dakota, and Minnesota have high concentrations of food deserts.

Generally, the Midwest has the least amount of food deserts, and Indiana, Ohio, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island stand out for providing the most easily accessible grocery stores to their residents.

According to the data, 10 percent of the country's census tracts, which house 13.5 million people, qualified as food deserts. 82 percent of these people live in urban areas.

Read More:

• USDA Introduces Online Tool for Locating 'Food Deserts' (USDA)
• Food Desert Locator (USDA)
• Map: Do You Live in a Food Desert? (GOOD)