US Population Over 281 Million
January 03, 2001
Provided by: US Census Bureau
Summary author & editor: Martin Ruzek
Human population is an important element of the Earth system. The nation's resident population on Census Day, April 1, 2000, was 281,421,906, a 13.2 percent increase over the 248,709,873 counted in the 1990 census. The U.S. resident population includes the total number of people in the 50 states and the District of Columbia. An additional 576,367 Americans reside outside of the United States.
The most populous state in the country was California (33,871,648); the least populous was Wyoming (493,782). The state that gained the most numerically since the 1990 census was California, up 4,111,627. Nevada had the highest percentage growth in population, climbing 66.3 percent (796,424 people) since the last census. Regionally, the South and West picked up the bulk of the nation's population increase, 14,790,890 and 10,411,850, respectively. The Northeast and Midwest also grew: 2,785,149 and 4,724,144. Additionally, the resident population of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico was 3,808,610, an 8.1 percent increase over the number counted a decade earlier.
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