How Airports Serve Tennessee
Mark Pearson
This map displays the major airports in and around Tennessee. It shows how the state can divided according to which airport is the closest as the crow flies.
The flags are a sample of 500 census tracts (of 1489 tracts total) within the state.
Some census tract flags may look like they are colored for one airport's region but are actually in another airport's region. The census tract flags are colored with which airport they are closest to as the crow flies along the surface of the earth (the Haversine distance formula). The region boundaries that are displayed on map were computed assuming assuming the earth is flat. (The lines that divide regions are a Voronoi diagram, and I couldn't find any algorithm that calculate the lines on a sphere such as the earth.) In short, although a few census tracts may look like they're mislabeled near a boundary, it's actually the boundary that is slightly wrong.
For more information, see the full report:
http://www.mark-pearson.com/airport-distances/

BNA serves 2,266,712 people in TN
Nashville International Airport (Berry Field)

MEM serves 1,449,276 people in TN
Memphis International Airport

TYS serves 1,263,597 people in TN
McGhee Tyson Airport

CHA serves 671,557 people in TN
Chattanooga Metropolitan Airport (Lovell Field)

TRI serves 527,420 people in TN
Tri-Cities Regional Airport (Tri-Cities Regional TN/VA)

HSV serves 161,843 people in TN
Huntsville International Airport (Carl T. Jones Field)

AVL serves 5,700 people in TN
Asheville Regional Airport

dividing line

6,867 people
closest airport: MEM

4,833 people
closest airport: BNA

5,802 people
closest airport: CHA

closest airport: MEM

closest airport: BNA

closest airport: TYS

closest airport: CHA

closest airport: HSV

closest airport: TRI

4 people

397 people

3 people