Talk:List of U.S. states by population

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Contents

[edit] 2005 Link?

Does anyone have a link to the 2005 census estimates? --Emplynx 04:15, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Population and House Seats

The numbers for "house seats" in the table reflect the numbers calculated off 2000 census data. But the population shown in the same table does not show 2000 census data. If you calculate house seats on your own, using data only in the table shown here, your numbers will not jive. http://www.census.gov/population/www/censusdata/apportionment.html. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 140.185.215.83 (talk) 17:41, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Er, and so? What exactly would you like the article to do differently? The number of house seats is only reapportioned every 10 years. This late in the decade the correlation between representation and population begins to slip a bit. --Jfruh (talk) 18:25, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Indicate with a footnote that the numbers in the "House Seats" and the "Electoral College Votes" columns are based on the 2000 census numbers, and not the numbers shown in the table. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 140.185.215.83 (talk) 18:35, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] 2004 #s?

Does this page still use 2000 data because it is more accurate (and official) than the 2004 American Community Survey? Some rankings have changed in the intervening 4 years (GA is now 9th ahead of NJ). I'd be willing to update if anyone agrees it is more valuable (or maybe put both in the table). -Jcbarr 01:27, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

The diennial (ie, 1990, 2000, 2010) census data is more official because it is (or at least attempts to be) an actual count rather than an estimate, and is generally considered the standard data source for these types of lists. It should definitely be included, but you could put the ACS estimates alongside them. --Shuageo 05:20, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] population

I find it hard to believe that cities like Atlanta, Boston and Denver don't have a population over 1.000.000. There's always a difference between agglomerations and cities of course, but the numbers in this table seem very low, or rather : very old. I can name an endless list of equally reliable/unreliable sources, all contradicting each other, but on this they all agree.

What on earth does that have to do with this list? This is a list of state populations, not city populations. Atlanta, Boston, and Denver aren't on the list. --Jfruh 13:00, 23 August 2005 (UTC)
This is the wrong article, but only a small fraction of the Metro portion of Atlanta & Boston live in the central cities. American metropolian areas are much further spread out than in Europe. Jon 21:20, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Other territories?

Since DC is already on here, would anyone object to adding the other populated US non-state jurisdictions (Guam, Puerto Rico, US Virgin Islands, Northern Marianas, American Samoa ... am I missing anybody?) in the same way? (i.e.italicized, not given a number). It could be instructive to see how these stack up. --Jfruh 22:40, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

Definitely, I thik thats a great idea if you can get the census data for these areas. (I replaced the images on this page with links because they were breaking up the talk page. hope that is okay.) --Shuageo 05:52, 23 February 2006 (UTC)


|- | Downtown Honolulu, Hawaii. |- |Corn production in Colorado. |- |Delicate Arch, Arches National Park, Utah |}

[edit] philly caption

what is the "largest" skyline mean? is that a quantifiable measure? and to say "outside New York on the east coast" is ambiguous. Of course New York *is* on the East Coast (capitalized because it refers to a region) but I do not think that is what the contributor meant. But really, what is meant, and what is the point? This is a list of state populations, not city skylines.--Shuageo 05:53, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

I agree, before I even saw the comment above. Hillsboro 15:12, 1 May 2006 (UTC)--Hillsboro 15:12, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Reference?

The numbers don't match the numbers given in the reference [1] at the bottom of the page. If they're from a revised estimate, the reference needs to be updated. 68.84.34.154 21:35, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] 300 million

At the current pace of 1 new inhabitant every 11 seconds, about 7855 people a day, the U.S. population can be expected to reach 300 million by Oct. 22. Should this be added you think, that it'll reach 300 million in late October or in the fourth quarter or whatever, or not? Jack Daw 13:58, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

The formula used too much of an estimate to state Oct 22 or even late October; accordingly I've changed in to "in October or November" of 2006. Also stating Oct 22 would be crystal balling Jon 21:07, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Electoral College

I just added electoral votes. It helps in considering the importance of a state in Presidential elections. Representatives in Congress might be more relevant, what do you think? Listing Electors has the advantage that we can include Washington DC. samwaltz 20:45, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

I think it adds an interesting dimension in terms of how size = (political) power. I don't object to it. Jack Daw 13:33, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
I don't really think it's needed (just add 2 to all 50 states and also include DC), but I'm not going to remove it either. However, the table does need to expliticly state the year and so I'll add it. Jon 21:00, 30 June 2006 (UTC)
Check the history. The original comment was made before Reps were included in the table; in any case, Electors are seen as the more relevant every four years or so, and it spares us from maintaining a page "List of U.S. states by electors". However, I'd still consider adding the columns "Pop. per Rep" and "Pop. per Elector". Meh, we'll see. I suppose it doesn't need to be worried about until 2008 or so. samwaltz 21:42, 30 June 2006 (UTC)
I just did the calcs in Excel for each state for the Pop per Rep and Pop per Elector columns. I'll transcribe them into the table tomorrow. --Mikebrand 19:36, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Calculating Population per House Seat and Electoral Vote

Here's the process I used that worked fairly well:

  • Copy table from article and paste into Word.
  • Replace || with ^t.
  • Copy and pasted into Excel.
  • Perform calcs.
  • Save as text file.
  • Open text file in Word.
  • Replace ^t with ||.
  • Replace |-||||||||||#DIV/0!||#DIV/0! with |- (the former shows up as an artifact).
  • Replace " with (nothing).
  • Copy and paste into article.
  • Clean up stray issues (eg, #VALUE).

--Mikebrand 19:46, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] D.C. & P.R. On The List

Gee, when did they become states? 72.82.197.184 16:22, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

They have territory rankings, not state rankings. It has been a year since you posted this, so I guess it may have been misleading back then! Frank12 06:17, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] This article is junk!

Florida 22nd? Colorado 4th?? This is BS. This article needs to be blocked for editing if it is being vandalized.

Why not just revert it then? I saw that, and I reverted it. Simple as that. Jack Daw 17:44, 21 September 2006 (UTC)
    • Revert to what? How do you know the rest of it is correct? How do you know CO is 22nd and not 23rd?
What do you mean? The figures are from the census bureau, you'll have to ask them. Jack Daw 15:26, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

This Article is garbage the figures are all wrong, New York's population is listed at 7.8 million and that is just so horribly wrong, New York city has a population of 8.2 million. —Preceding unsigned comment added by MatM (talk • contribs) 02:49, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

The article was vandalized ... I reverted it to the last good version. --Jfruh (talk) 04:14, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Sortable Table

The ability to sort a table is a great addition. It works well in this table for the Pop/Seat and Pop/Vote columns as each of the cells all contain the same number of digits. However, the sorting is inaccurate for the Pop column. The guide at the link below claims that adding leading   codes addresses the issue of sorting numbers with commas (which are treated as strings). However, I have experimented extensively with this table trying various numbers of leading   entries but to no avail. The only workable solution I found was to remove commas from the numbers. That gives accurate sorting, but it makes the numbers difficult to read.

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:Table#Sorting

Any ideas on how to fix it? If not, would it be better to have:

a) sortable population numbers without commas
b) non-sortable pop numbers with commans

--Mikebrand 19:18, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

The   work in IE. Perhaps it depends on the browser?--Patrick 11:24, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for pointing that out. The results I desribed above were in FireFox. I just now tested in IE6 and you are correct, the   does result in accurate sorts with commas in the numbers.--Mikebrand 14:41, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
That is unfortunate, that it does not work in Firefox.--Patrick 15:12, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
.. I would assume that adding 0 as a placeholder would fix whatever happens when you sort by population.. its straight alphabetization instead of number sorting.

There is a way to add commas to plain numbers.. {{formatnum:153125239539}} prints 153,125,239,539 but I'm not sure how the table would react to having the {{formatnum:__}} thing in it. drumguy8800 C T 12:37, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] illegal aliens?

do they count? they shouldn't —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Erbear3232 (talk • contribs) 13:32, 6 December 2006 (UTC).

The population figures are of people residing in an area. That is, everyone other than short term visitors (ie, tourists) are counted in the pop figures. Tourists are counted in their home country. Illegal aliens are not counted in their country of origin as they do not reside there. Regardless of someone's legal status of where they live, they still reside somewhere and the population figures count them for the location they reside. Measures that do not count illegal alliens include "eligible voters" and "potential eligible voters."--Mikebrand 18:43, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
And it's impossible to obtain an accurate count for this category of resident, as they are collectvely a population with diminished interest in cooperating with the census process, and tend to be suspicious of government officials (for obvious reasons). -- Yellowdesk 15:19, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Old map

Data is from 2006, but the map still shows 2005 positions. Can whoever made that map in the first place release the blank map file so that we can keep it up to date as each year passes? — Eric Herboso 14:01, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Washington will pass Massachusetts

Looks like it will happen soon, when do we get the numbers.

[edit] Numbers don't match

The numbers in the state pages and this page don't match. For instance, it says on Massachusetts' page that it is ranked 13th with whatever the population was, while on this page it says 14th with a different figure. The above comment mentions how Washington will pass Massachusetts. Is this just speculation and the reason for the edit? If so, it does not seem right to change it based on that. I thought we had to wait until the 2010 Census. Anyways, this article and the populations on state pages may need some serious revising. It seems terribly off-kilt. Zeppelin462 05:07, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

This list has historically been updated annually to reflect the Census number as of July 1 of a given year (currently 2007). The list was just updated on January 20th to the 2007 numbers. These new numbers show Washington overtaking Massachusetts for 13th creating the discrepancy with Massachusetts's article. The state articles use 2000 Census data for the detailed demographics, but also seem to usually include a sentence on the recent Census estimates. So, updating this list is one thing, but such updates do seem to be needed across the 50 states. VerruckteDan (talk) 19:05, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
The rankings on this page are based on 2007 estimates put out by the U.S. Census Bureau, not on the 2000 census. Otherwise, nearly every state after Michigan would have to be reranked, not just Washington/Massachusetts. Also, if others are going to rerank them, please do not randomly change numbers. While all of the other states still had 2007 population estimates, Washington had some other number not supported by the U.S. Census Bureau's own publication. These numbers and rankings here do not match the rankings on the individual state pages, and there seems to be no consensus as to which population number should be reported on those pages(2000 or 2007, or even another year in between). (California's page reports 2007 numbers, while Texas' reports the 2000 census, I believe).Gittinsj (talk) 06:16, 16 March 2008 (UTC)gittinsj

[edit] Warped territory numbers

I believe that the "territory" column is warped; shouldn't Alaska be given the #1 spot, not California? —ScouterSig 04:42, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

The territory column doesn't represent a ranking of the state's area; it reperesents of ranking of all the entitites in the list -- states, territories, and DC -- whereas the "population rank" is the rank of the states only. This will become clear if you scroll down to the bottom of the table.
These column titles are completely baffling, and we need to think of better wording, because Scouter's assumption as to what they meant actually makes more sense than what they really mean. --Jfruh (talk) 23:02, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
I see someone has renamed the columns. Now I totally get it. —ScouterSig 15:06, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Territories included in a State list

This list explicitly references "States" and so should only include states at least in my opinion. Perhaps a secondary list attached to this page could include the territories of the United States and other possessions? My main complaint stems from the fact that as someone just looking at technical "states" that this list is confusing and the percentage figures are off. Arguably they are not off that much but still this bothers me. At very least perhaps the title need be change? - A random person