Born in Chile, adopted at six months and raised in upstate New York by Italian parents, Snooki bloomed at the Jersey Shore last summer and is now taking over South Beach in season two of MTV’s The Jersey Shore.

From the top of her pouf to the bottom of her tanned toes, we know a lot about Nicole Polizzi, AKA Snooki, Snickas, Snooks, Snickers and the Princess of Poughkeepsie.  (Even Obama knows about her by now.)

The Washington Post describes her fame, “After the media storm of ‘Jersey Shore’s’ initial season, Snooki has every reason to believe the world revolves around her, which it very well may.”

Social Explorer lets you learn even more about this icon and her world.

For this installment of The Jersey Shore Data Hookup, we’ll use Social Explorer to find out all about her hometown of Marlboro, NY, (population 3,874) through an interactive map.

This map uses one of Social Explorer’s new color schemes called “Pink Panther”–ideal for fashionable mapmakers.

You can also create reports to find out more about where she grew up, such as:

-Just how Italian is Marlboro?  31.1% (nearly seven times the rate nationwide)

-And, how many other Chileans live nearby? 70 in Ulster County (total population 177,749)

Click on the map (or the pouf) to explore more.

Vampires are booming thanks to Twilight’s book sales, movie tickets and fainting fans.  With Social Explorer you can learn where they might be booming in the US too.

Count von Count wanted us to count up his vampire peers.

Of course, there is no “are you a vampire?” question on the census form, but using Social Explorer’s reports tools, you can examine the Romanian population—those hailing from the land of the legendary Transylvania, which is purportedly the land of Vampires.  (Of course being Romanian does not make one a vampire, who after all are mythical.  Besides, once bitten, one from any ancestry or origin can become a vampire.)

Vampire buzz is on the rise, and Social Explorer can (almost) let you work with vampiric datasets.

In 2000, the remote city of Forks, Washington (Clallam County), where the Twilight saga takes place, had eight residents who were born in Romania, and 29 who identified as having Romanian ancestry.

Because Clallam County has a small population, we won’t have the exact numbers on the Romanian  increase until the 2010 Census data are released, but using the American Community Survey estimates for 2006-2008, we can look at trends in Washington State to examine the population shifts.

Back in the 1920s (Nosferatu’s heyday), there were 102,803 US residents born in Romania. That number has grown to 164,294, according to the 2006-08 ACS.

As the Twilight books rose up the bestseller list, the Washington Romanian population grew too.  Between 2000 and 2008, the Romanian population in Washington State increased from 4,345 to 7,339, and the number of residents with Romanian ancestry increased from 9,964 to 17,041.

Click here to create Social Explorer reports about potential vampires, werewolves (purportedly  to have originated in Germany) and other notable populations.

In “White Population Rises in Manhattan,” Sam Roberts details the latest shift in the demographics of New York City.  Based on 2009 American Community Survey estimates, Roberts writes about the changes in the white population across the city, as well as in individual neighborhoods, such as Harlem.  This trend marks the first time since 1970 that a majority of Manhattan residents are non-Hispanic white.

The article quotes Social Explorer’s Andrew Beveridge on the larger population movements behind the shift, “Overall, the trend of people, particularly younger people, is staying in cities to build their lives and careers…People would die to live in Manhattan now.“

Click here to read the full article.