Mean center of United States population
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The mean center of U.S. population is determined by the United States Census Bureau after tabulating the results of each census. The Bureau defines it to be:
the point at which an imaginary, flat, weightless, and rigid map of the United States would balance perfectly if weights of identical value were placed on it so that each weight represented the location of one person on the date of the census.
During the 20th century, the mean center of population has shifted 324 miles (521 km) west and 101 miles (163 km) south. The southerly movement was much stronger during the second half of the century; 79 miles (127 km) of the 101 miles (163 km) happened between 1950 and 2000.
The following counties included the mean center of U.S. population since 1790:
- 1790: Kent County, Maryland
- 1800: Howard County, Maryland
- 1810: Loudoun County, Virginia
- 1820: Hardy County, West Virginia
- 1830: Grant County, West Virginia
- 1840: Upshur County, West Virginia
- 1850: Wirt County, West Virginia
- 1860: Pike County, Ohio
- 1870: Highland County, Ohio
- 1880: Boone County, Kentucky
- 1890: Decatur County, Indiana
- 1900: Bartholomew County, Indiana
- 1910: Monroe County, Indiana
- 1920: Owen County, Indiana
- 1930: Greene County, Indiana
- 1940: Sullivan County, Indiana
- 1950: Clay County, Illinois
- 1960: Clinton County, Illinois
- 1970: St. Clair County, Illinois
- 1980: Jefferson County, Missouri
- 1990: Crawford County, Missouri
- 2000: Phelps County, Missouri
The addition of Alaska and Hawaii to the union had the effect of moving the center about two miles farther south and about ten miles farther west for 1960.
In the first census, 1790, the mean population center was located a little under 8 miles (13 km) west, and slightly north, of Chestertown, Maryland, a few feet from a small branch of the Chesapeake Bay called Stavely Pond. Oddly enough, the spot is on the "Great Oak Mannour" property patented to Gov. Josias Fendall (ca. 1628-1687) in the mid-1600s, one of Kent County's oldest and largest land grants. The patent was for 2000 acres (8 km²). Fendall was the 4th proprietary governor of Maryland from 1656-1660.
In 1800, the mean population center leaped across the Bay to a spot just east of today's Glenelg, Maryland.
Although the mean population centers between 1820 and 1860 were located in what is present day West Virginia (having split from Virginia in 1862); at the time, these population centers were located in Virginia.
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