Groundbreaking research has revealed that Tennessee has more cemeteries per square mile than any state in the nation and a prominent graveyard expert wants to know why.
Wilbur Zelinsky, professor emeritus of geography at Penn State University, said Tennessee has nearly 30 named cemeteries per 100 square miles, a higher density than any other state.But so far, he's been unable to find an explanation.
"I cannot at this time account for this," Zelinsky said Friday in a telephone interview from Atlanta, where he addressed the annual meeting of the Association of American Geographers. "I have no answer, really."
Particularly perplexing to Zelinsky is that Tennessee's neighbor to the east, North Carolina, has one of the lowest densities of named cemeteries, 4.9 per 100 square miles.
Zelinsky said that while cemetery density normally is higher in areas that were settled earlier, in this case the reverse is true, because settlers moved from North Carolina to Tennessee.
Zelinsky said one reason for lower cemetery density in more recently settled areas was the historical trend away from small church or family owned plots to large commercial cemeteries.
Zelinsky concedes that his research has no great significance.