Our work on the Redistricting the Nation site proceeds apace for the big launch on October 21. We’ll be revealing it piece by piece over the coming weeks– head over there now for your first glimpse. In exciting news, we are partnering with the Committee of Seventy (a local political watchdog organization with which we’ve collaborated on election incident mapping) to launch a companion site focused on the Philadelphia region. Both websites are aimed at educating and engaging the public around redistricting issues, prior to the 2010 Census and the 2011 national redistricting process.

Meanwhile, our national countdown brings us to the ninth least compact district in the U.S. House of Representatives: Maryland’s Second Congressional District.

Maryland's 2nd Congressional District: the 9th least compact U.S. House District

This district has a colorful history, having existed since the First United States Congress in 1789. Since that time it has passed through the hands of numerous parties with colorful and unfamiliar names like Know-Nothing and Unconditional Unionist.

While a number of Maryland’s congressional districts earn low compactness scores because their boundaries follow the filigreed shores of the Chesapeake Bay, there is also clearly an element of intent at work here. The district largely curves around Baltimore City to include portions of Anne Arundel, Baltimore and Harford Counties. A contentious redistricting process following the 2000 Census enabled the state’s Democrats to draw boundaries that rendered the Second District competitive and resulted in a pickup after nearly 20 years of Republican control.

Although we were far from a consensus, a quick poll of the office found that a hanger (albeit fragmented and turned sideways) was the most common interpretation of the district’s shape. Tell us what you think.