The variation in SNP density within the Phase II HapMap is shown in Fig. 1. On average there are 1.14 genotyped polymorphic SNPs per kilobase (average spacing is 875 base pairs (bp)) and 98.6% of the assembled genome is within 5 kb of the nearest polymorphic SNP. Still, there is heterogeneity in genotyped SNP density at both broad (Fig. 1a) and fine (Fig. 1b) scales. Furthermore, there are systematic changes in genotyped SNP density around genomic features including genes (Fig. 1c).