Map: The National Park Service's (NPS) Natural Sounds and Night Skies Division

Mapped: The Loudest and Quietest Places in the US

United States Maps + Infographics
by Morgane Croissant Aug 29, 2017

Looking for some peace and quiet? You won’t find it easily in the US, especially if you live on the East Coast.

The National Park Service’s (NPS) Natural Sounds and Night Skies Division monitored the noise level in places all around the US, from NYC to Yellowstone National Park, and created a map that shows the quietest and loudest places in the nation.

Here are the loudest and quietest places in the US

Map: The National Park Service’s (NPS) Natural Sounds and Night Skies Division

If you’re looking for a racket, yellow is where you want to go. If you’re wanting silence, deep blue is for you.

After analyzing the data collected, the concerns of the NPS are not for humans (after all, we created this mess), but for the wildlife which gets affected by man-made noise. As an example of the consequences of noise pollution on wildlife, Science explains that “[…] bats and owls, whose ears are up to 20 decibels more sensitive than human ears, are affected by human-made noise because it drowns out the faint rustles of insects and rodents they need to hunt.”

H/T: Science

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