A few weeks ago I did an article and video on the population in Canada. The number of inhabitants by Province and Territory were analyzed. In this new article we will instead analyze the U.S. States by population numbers over time. We will start with data from 1790 until we get to the latest available data from 2020. We will focus not only on the “classic” data but also on some insights. The data used are those of the U.S. Census Bureau. What is the population of the United States 1790/2020.

Top U.S. States by Population 1790 to 2020

Let’s start with an initial figure. What are the top U.S. states with the largest populations in 2020? According to the Census Bureau, California leads this class. In fact, California has a 2020 population of almost 40 million. To understand about 2/3 of Italy. In second place we find Texas, with over 29 million, and in third place Florida with 21 million and a half. Among the states with more than 20 million inhabitants, there is also the state of New York with 20 million and 200 thousand inhabitants. Closing the list of the top 20 states by number of inhabitants is Wisconsin with almost 6 million inhabitants: more precisely 5,893,718.

Moving the hand of time back a full 230 years, to 1790, the situation was decidedly different. The leading state in terms of population was Virginia, with 691,000 inhabitants. The state of Virginia was followed by Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Massachusetts. New York was in fifth place with 350,000 inhabitants. Overall, no state in the United States was above 1 million in population. Tennessee closed the rankings with nearly 36 thousand inhabitants.

Over the years, New York State has overtaken Pennsylvania and Virginia to become the largest state in the US for hundreds of years. Only in the 1960s was New York overtaken by California, which, as we have seen, is currently the leading state.

The evolution of the U.S. population through a map

In order to understand how the population has evolved over time in the United States, I made this map. The data shown are ten years old, starting in 1790 and ending in 2020.

Most populated Cities in the US from 1790 to 2020

What were and are the cities with the most residents in the United States? Let’s start with an initial figure. The top 20 nations by population in 1790. First, it must be said that the population of the United States in 1790 was about 3 million 900 thousand inhabitants. Nothing to do, of course, with the current more than 331 million inhabitants. But this figure was influenced not only by the fact that in general, in the world, the inhabitants were fewer. But also by the fact that the United States had, in 1790 had only 16 states. The city with the most inhabitants in 1790 was New York, in the state of New York, with about 33 thousand inhabitants. In second place was Philadelphia with 28,522 and in third place was Boston with 18,320. A completely different figure from today. In fact they are in the Bronx, a district of New York, today there are about 1.4 million inhabitants.

In 2020, in fact, the situation is decidedly different. The first city remains New York, but the population of this area is 8 million 622 thousand inhabitants. This is followed by Los Angeles, in California, with over 4 million inhabitants and in third place Chicago with 2,670,406. To understand how the situation has changed in the 230 years examined, the city that is in 20th place in 2020, Washington has 724,342 inhabitants. More than three times the sum of the top 20 cities in 1790.

To find out about the top 50 cities in the United States, I made this table from Wikipedia. The table shows the top 50 cities by population, 2020 data, and 2010 data. It also shows the change from 2010 to 2020 in percentage and the population density. Among the top 50 cities in the U.S. by population, the one that grew the most from 2010 to 2020 is Seattle, in the state of Washington. It grew from 608,000 inhabitants to 769,000. It was followed by Austin and Fort Worth in Texas, which grew by 25.16% and 25.95% respectively.

Among the top 50 cities in the U.S. by population, 45 increased their population from 2010 to 2020. Only five had a negative change. Of these, the one with the largest decrease is Detroit, with a variation of -6.78%. Detroit went from 713,777 inhabitants in 2010 to 665,369 in 2020. Baltimore followed with -5.61%. Among the cities with a negative variation are also Long Beach, Milwaukee and Chicago.

Read more here: https://statisticsanddata.org/data/most-populated-cities-in-the-us/

What’s usa population

We started by first showing the population of the individual states. We saw how to date the top state by population is California. And we saw how there has been an evolution over the last 230 years. While in the early years of the birth of the United States the population was located primarily in the east, over time it has developed all along the current territory of the United States. Not only that, California has outgrown New York over time. But how many total inhabitants are there in the United States today?

The number of people in the United States in 2020 (again according to the Census Bureau) is over 331 million. As of today, the US is the third largest nation in the world behind China and India, which have a population of almost 1.5 billion per state. The United States is growing steadily in terms of population. Compared to the early post-war years, in 1950, the population has more than doubled. In fact, while the population in 1950 was 150 million, it is now 331 million and is projected to continue growing.

United States Population 2020

Age- and gender-wise, how is the U.S. population distributed?

At the level of age groups, the one with the most inhabitants is the 25-54 age group, which represents 39.5% of the total (also due to its size). In general, young people aged 0-17 are 18.7% of the population while the over-65s are 15.6%.

As far as gender is concerned, 49.3% of the population is male and 50.7% female. The female gender is in fact very much, in terms of percentage, in the over 65 bracket. In fact, among the over 65s, females make up 55.6% of the total while males make up 44.4%.

Sources and useful links

I used several sources including the Census Bureau, Worldometers, and Wikipedia to create this article and video.

To view a video of the states with the most people since 1790: https://youtu.be/12iCMDlkzLU

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