GIS: partition area based on equal population

Question

I want to partition a US state into 20 parts of approximately equal population. I can do this using, say, tracts, ZIP codes or another smaller geography. I\'m looking for an alg

Answer 1

You should consider the Shortest splitline algorithm, recommended for creating optimally compact voting districts. Here is a description of its results in solving gerrymandering.

Answer 2

You can try centroidal weighted voronoi diagrams. i.e. Loyds algorithm. Pick the voronoi diagram and the center of gravity of each voronoi cell and rinse and repeat:http://www-cs-students.stanford.edu/~amitp/game-programming/polygon-map-generation/