You may not have anything to say but I d
written by Mark R. , July 11, 2007

That graphic alone is misleading. Its only a small part of the economic picture.
Maybe you should put this up as comparison by how each US state's GDP stacks up to other nations, and what do you know it makes perfect sense why we use so much petrol. When California alone has a GDP the size of France. and that is 1 of 50 states, however it is the biggest GDP. a better comparison would be US against the EU. when comparing GDP's and Petrol used.
http://tinyurl.com/ytmwxu

...
written by jack , July 11, 2007

Liters per capita would be a more illuminating metric.

...
written by mbm , July 12, 2007

^agreed with the comment above, but even if we'd represent an image with the liters/person consumption, I'm probably sure the USA would still be on top :/

...
written by R , July 12, 2007

Gal/day Population Per capita
US 346,3 301139947 1,15
Britain 18,7 60776238 0,31
Germany 24,1 82400996 0,29
Italy 14,5 58147733 0,25
Spain 7,4 40448191 0,18
France 11,3 63713926 0,18

sources:
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/index.html
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php?story_id=3862&page=1

...
written by KrAzYkArL , August 11, 2007

how can it be misleading? its simply displaying facts. and why would you divide it into states? its comparing COUNTRIES... california is not a country. if it were split into states, you'd have to split the other countries into provinces and prefectures too... the point of the graphic is to illustrate how the united states as a WHOLE is waaayy too addicted to oil.