An attempt at objectively ranking the natural beauty of states
For some time I have wanted to construct a map performing an objective ranking of U.S. states, according to their natural beauty.
To do this I assumed that the three most important factors are environmental quality, environmental diversity, and environmental expanse. E.g., a state where the environment is more diverse, more expansive, and of a higher quality will naturally be more beautiful.
I looked at several different qualities which seemed to be rather important in determining the factors mentioned above. These qualities include air quality, water quality, biodiversity, topographic diversity, climatic diversity, etc.
While I certainly do not agree with all of the rankings, I am fairly satisfied with how they came out, and I feel a large number of people could agree they're mostly correct, except the inter-mountain west, Vermont, and West Virginia. I think to improve the ranking, doing a more in-depth dive on topographic diversity would be helpful. Further, I think it would be helpful to perhaps do polling to see how important different qualities are to the general populous. For instance, if people value climatic diversity more than biodiversity, I can weight the categories accordingly.
Let me know what you all think!