Jenks natural breaks optimization

Graduating with his Ph.D. in agricultural geography from Syracuse University in 1947, Jenks began his career under the tutelage of Richard Harrison, cartographer for Time and Fortune magazine.

His work with statistics grew out of a desire to make choropleth maps more visually accurate for the viewer.

Finally the sum of squared deviations from the mean of the complete data set(SDAM), and the goodness of variance fit (GVF) may be calculated.

Jenks’ goal in developing this method was to create a map that was absolutely accurate, in terms of the representation of data's spatial attributes.

He developed this with the intention of using relatively few data classes, less than seven, because that was the limit when using monochromatic shading on a choroplethic map.

When making choropleth maps, the Jenks classification method can be advantageous because if there are clusters in the data values, it will identify them.

Choropleth map showing estimated percent of the population below 150% poverty in the Contiguous United States by county, 2020 that uses the Jenks natural breaks classification