America's Great Carl's Jr.—Hardee's Divide

It gets dicey in the "mixing zone." That's what geographer Nik Freeman has dubbed the 30.7-mile space between the Hardee's in Siloam Springs, Arkansas, and the Carl's Jr. in Tahlequah, Oklahoma. That's the exact spot where the eastern fast food chain comes closest to the western one, but as Freeman observes, never the twain shall meet. His mapping project, which takes a hard and dispassionate look at the locations of over 2,800 Hardee’s and Carl’s Jr restaurants, finds that the dividing line between these burger joints is weirdly shaped, but stark.

Though mapmakers have tackled the great burger border before, Freeman's creation offers a new level of detail, with Hardee's franchises pinpointed as red dots and Carl's Jr. in yellow. Carl's Jr. locations, you'll notice, are much more concentrated in urban areas in the West, while Hardee's is widely dispersed over the East and Midwest.