| Geography of Survivor Contestants | ||||||||||
| Reality Show Contestants Tend to Match Population | ||||||||||
by Matt Rosenberg
Fans of the reality television show Survivor on CBS know that sixteen contestants from around the United States are selected to "Outwit, Outplay, and Outlast" each other to become the final survivor and win US $1 million. The seventh version of Survivor is currently being shown of television; it takes place one the Pearl Islands near Panama.
I mapped the hometowns of all 112 survivors (16 in each of 7 seasons) and discovered some interesting distributions. Most remarkable was the lack of contestants from some of the largest metropolitan areas (and thus largest television markets) in the country.
Chicago, our third largest metro area, has only had one contestant representative - Andrew from the current seventh season. Atlanta, our 11th largest metro area has had no representation (although two contestants were from rural Georgia a bit south of Atlanta). Minneapolis-St. Paul, our 15th largest metropolitan area, also has had no representation. Additionally, no one from the entire state of Minnesota has even appeared on Survivor, making it the most populous state (it's number 21) without a contestant - something they can probably be proud of.
On the map below each color represents a different season, as shown in the legend. Larger dots are the winners. Click the map for the larger version. Alaska and Hawaii are not shown on the map because no one from Alaska or Hawaii has been on the show.
Survivor 1 - Palau TigaThe geography of season one included the only two contestants from Wisconsin so far and two from the San Francisco Bay Area.
Survivor 2 - Outback (Australia)Australia hosted a record four contestants from the New York City metropolitan area. There were also two contestants from Michigan and Texas each.
Survivor 3 - AfricaTwo survivors in season three came from the Orlando, Florida area. The winner and one other contestant were from Massachusetts.
Survivor 4 - MarquesasGood geographic distribution here. Two from NYC and Boston each.
Survivor 5 - ThailandVery poor distribution - six contestants from Texas and Louisiana, including three from Dallas-Fort Worth, one from Austin, and two from Louisiana.
Survivor 6 - AmazonFive Californians, including four from the Los Angeles area! Two contestants from Missouri.
Survivor 7 - Pearl IslandsAnother California-heavy show, with four from the state and only one from NYC. Interestingly enough, Ryan S. is from Clarksville, Tennessee as is Gretchen from the first Survivor. For a city of just over 100,000, that's really impressive representation.
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