United States Mean Population Center, 1790-2000 (WMS)

  • Released Monday, May 23, 2005
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The mean center of population, traditionally referred to as the center of population, is provided for each census in the United States since 1790. The mean center of population is the point at which an imaginary, flat, weightless, and rigid map of the United States would balance if weights of identical value were placed on it so that each weight represented the location of one person. The mean center of population based on the 2000 census results is located in Phelps County, Missouri. For a complete list of the mean center of population for each census since 1790, and for a more detailed description of how these values are calculated, see http://www.census.gov/geo/www/cenpop/calculate2k.pdf.

This animation shows the mean population center of the United States for each census from 1790-2000.

This product is available through our Web Map Service.

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Please give credit for this item to:
NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio

This page was originally published on Monday, May 23, 2005.
This page was last updated on Wednesday, May 3, 2023 at 1:56 PM EDT.

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