Misc

Chart: The Population Rank of Every U.S. State Over 100 Years

Published

5 years ago

February 7, 2018

Jeff Desjardins

The Population Rank of Every U.S. State Over 100 Years

“Go west, young man, and grow up with the country.”

Popularized by Horace Greeley, the editor of the New-York Tribune, these words formed one of the great catchphrases at the height of the Manifest Destiny era in the 19th century.

Although that period is still a few chapters back in the history books, the fact is the West Coast is still relatively new today. Los Angeles was only incorporated in 1850, Portland in 1851, and Seattle in 1869.

And throughout the 20th century – Americans were moving westward in droves, ultimately culminating in California taking over the title of the most populous state in the union by the year 1960.

Population Rank by State

Today’s visualization is a bump chart from Aaron Penne, and it shows the population rank of U.S. states and D.C. over the timeframe of a century (1917-2017) using data from the U.S. Census Bureau.

When a state passes another in population in a given year, it “bumps” the other state from that place in the ranking. Big movers are also highlighted in orange (up) and black (down) on the graph.

Let’s look at the numbers for the first year on the graph, which is 1917:

Rank	State	Population (1917)
#1	New York	9,993,000
#2	Pennsylvania	8,578,000
#3	Illinois	6,313,000
#4	Ohio	5,510,000
#5	Texas	4,563,000
#6	Massachusetts	3,738,000
#7	Missouri	3,470,000
#8	Michigan	3,451,000
#9	California	3,171,000
#10	New Jersey	2,976,000
#11	Indiana	2,910,000
#12	Georgia	2,885,000
#13	Wisconsin	2,587,000
#14	North Carolina	2,546,000
#15	Kentucky	2,421,000
#16	Iowa	2,382,000
#17	Alabama	2,361,000
#18	Tennessee	2,331,000
#19	Minnesota	2,329,000
#20	Virginia	2,313,000
#21	Oklahoma	1,960,000
#22	Mississippi	1,820,000
#23	Lousiana	1,795,000
#24	Kansas	1,748,000
#25	Arkansas	1,737,000
#26	South Carolina	1,675,000
#27	West Virginia	1,439,000
#28	Maryland	1,428,000
#29	Connecticut	1,327,000
#30	Washington	1,287,000
#31	Nebraska	1,285,000
#32	Colorado	910,000
#33	Florida	895,000
#34	Maine	777,000
#35	Oregon	763,000
#36	North Dakota	661,000
#37	Rhode Island	606,000
#38	South Dakota	599,000
#39	Montana	505,000
#40	New Hampshire	447,000
#41	Utah	444,000
#42	Idaho	413,000
#43	District of Columbia	385,000
#44	Vermont	372,000
#45	New Mexico	361,000
#46	Arizona	311,000
#47	Delaware	222,000
#48	Wyoming	186,000
#49	Nevada	81,000

New York led the pack with just short of 10 million people, which made up 10% of the population of the country as a whole. Meanwhile, California had only 3.2 million people – and amazingly, Nevada only had 81,000 people in 1917.

Now let’s jump forward 50 years to 1967, when the U.S. population was closer to 200 million.

Rank	State	Population (1967)
#1	California	19,176,000
#2	New York	17,935,000
#3	Pennsylvania	11,681,000
#4	Illinois	10,947,000
#5	Texas	10,599,000
#6	Ohio	10,414,000
#7	Michigan	8,630,000
#8	New Jersey	6,928,000
#9	Florida	6,242,000
#10	Massachusetts	5,594,000
#11	Indiana	5,053,000
#12	North Carolina	4,952,000
#13	Missouri	4,539,000
#14	Virginia	4,508,000
#15	Georgia	4,408,000
#16	Wisconsin	4,303,000
#17	Tennessee	3,859,000
#18	Maryland	3,757,000
#19	Minnesota	3,659,000
#20	Louisiana	3,581,000
#21	Alabama	3,458,000
#22	Washington	3,174,000
#23	Kentucky	3,172,000
#24	Connecticut	2,935,000
#25	Iowa	2,793,000
#26	South Carolina	2,533,000
#27	Oklahoma	2,489,000
#28	Mississippi	2,228,000
#29	Kansas	2,197,000
#30	Colorado	2,053,000
#31	Oregon	1,979,000
#32	Arkansas	1,901,000
#33	West Virginia	1,769,000
#34	Arizona	1,646,000
#35	Nebraska	1,457,000
#36	Utah	1,019,000
#37	Maine	1,004,000
#38	New Mexico	1,000,000
#39	Rhode Island	909,000
#40	District of Columbia	791,000
#41	Hawaii	723,000
#42	Montana	701,000
#43	New Hampshire	697,000
#44	Idaho	688,000
#45	South Dakota	671,000
#46	North Dakota	626,000
#47	Delaware	525,000
#48	Nevada	449,000
#49	Vermont	423,000
#50	Wyoming	322,000
#51	Alaska	278,000

In just half of a century, California gained 16 million people, and jumped to the #1 spot in the process. That’s a 504% increase over its 1917 population.

The Largest Increases in Population

For a final table data, we’ll show you the 2017 state populations compared to the 1917 state populations.

The table is sorted by the percentage increase over the course of that 100 years of time.

Rank	State	Population (1917)	Population (2017)	% Increase
#1	Nevada	81,000	2,998,039	3,601%
#2	Florida	895,000	20,984,400	2,245%
#3	Arizona	311,000	7,016,270	2,156%
#4	California	3,171,000	39,536,653	1,147%
#5	Utah	444,000	3,101,833	599%
#6	Texas	4,563,000	28,304,596	520%
#7	Colorado	910,000	5,607,154	516%
#8	New Mexico	361,000	2,088,070	478%
#9	Washington	1,287,000	7,405,743	475%
#10	Oregon	763,000	4,142,776	443%
#11	Delaware	222,000	961,939	333%
#12	Maryland	1,428,000	6,052,177	324%
#13	Idaho	413,000	1,716,943	316%
#14	North Carolina	2,546,000	10,273,419	304%
#15	Virginia	2,313,000	8,470,020	266%
#16	Georgia	2,885,000	10,429,379	262%
#17	Wyoming	186,000	579,315	211%
#18	New Jersey	2,976,000	9,005,644	203%
#19	New Hampshire	447,000	1,342,795	200%
#20	South Carolina	1,675,000	5,024,369	200%
#21	Michigan	3,451,000	9,962,311	189%
#22	Tennessee	2,331,000	6,715,984	188%
#23	Connecticut	1,327,000	3,588,184	170%
#24	Lousiana	1,795,000	4,684,333	161%
#25	Minnesota	2,329,000	5,576,606	139%
#26	Indiana	2,910,000	6,666,818	129%
#27	Wisconsin	2,587,000	5,795,483	124%
#28	Ohio	5,510,000	11,658,609	112%
#29	Montana	505,000	1,050,493	108%
#30	Alabama	2,361,000	4,874,747	106%
#31	Illinois	6,313,000	12,802,023	103%
#32	Oklahoma	1,960,000	3,930,864	101%
#33	New York	9,993,000	19,849,399	99%
#34	Kentucky	2,421,000	4,454,189	84%
#35	Massachusetts	3,738,000	6,859,819	84%
#36	District of Columbia	385,000	693,972	80%
#37	Missouri	3,470,000	6,113,532	76%
#38	Rhode Island	606,000	1,059,639	75%
#39	Arkansas	1,737,000	3,004,279	73%
#40	Maine	777,000	1,335,907	72%
#41	Vermont	372,000	623,657	68%
#42	Kansas	1,748,000	2,913,123	67%
#43	Mississippi	1,820,000	2,984,100	64%
#44	Nebraska	1,285,000	1,920,076	49%
#45	Pennsylvania	8,578,000	12,805,537	49%
#46	South Dakota	599,000	869,666	45%
#47	Iowa	2,382,000	3,145,711	32%
#48	West Virginia	1,439,000	1,815,857	26%
#49	North Dakota	661,000	755,393	14%
#50	Alaska		739,795	n/a
#51	Hawaii		1,427,538	n/a

Not surprisingly, Nevada takes the cake with a 3,601% gain, going from 81,000 people to today’s 2,998,039.

Meanwhile, North Dakota had the smallest gain – it only added 14% more people over a whole century of time.

Related Topics:states rank data viz bump chart united states population

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Countries

Charted: The Number of Democracies Globally

How many democracies does the world have? This visual shows the change since 1945 and the top nations becoming more (and less) democratic.

Creator Program

Published

2 days ago

May 28, 2023

Freny Fernandes

Charted: The Number of Democracies Globally

The end of World War II in 1945 was a turning point for democracies around the world.

Before this critical turning point in geopolitics, democracies made up only a small number of the world’s countries, both legally and in practice. However, over the course of the next six decades, the number of democratic nations would more than quadruple.

Interestingly, studies have found that this trend has recently reversed as of the 2010s, with democracies and non-democracies now in a deadlock.

In this visualization, Staffan Landin uses data from V-DEM’s Electoral Democratic Index (EDI) to highlight the changing face of global politics over the past two decades and the nations that contributed the most to this change.

The Methodology

V-DEM’s EDI attempts to measure democratic development in a comprehensive way, through the contributions of 3,700 experts from countries around the world.

Instead of relying on each nation’s legally recognized system of government, the EDI analyzes the level of electoral democracy in countries on a range of indicators, including:

Free and fair elections
Rule of law
Alternative sources of information and association
Freedom of expression

Countries are assigned a score on a scale from 0 to 1, with higher scores indicating a higher level of democracy. Each is also categorized into four types of functional government, from liberal and electoral democracies to electoral and closed autocracies.

Which Countries Have Declined the Most?

The EDI found that numerous countries around the world saw declines in democracy over the past two decades. Here are the 10 countries that saw the steepest decline in EDI score since 2010:

Country	Democracy Index (2010)	Democracy Index (2022)	Points Lost
🇭🇺 Hungary	0.80	0.46	-34
🇵🇱 Poland	0.89	0.59	-30
🇷🇸 Serbia	0.61	0.34	-27
🇹🇷 Türkiye	0.55	0.28	-27
🇮🇳 India	0.71	0.44	-27
🇲🇱 Mali	0.51	0.25	-26
🇹🇭 Thailand	0.44	0.20	-24
🇦🇫 Afghanistan	0.38	0.16	-22
🇧🇷 Brazil	0.88	0.66	-22
🇧🇯 Benin	0.64	0.42	-22

Central and Eastern Europe was home to three of the countries seeing the largest declines in democracy. Hungary, Poland, and Serbia lead the table, with Hungary and Serbia in particular dropping below scores of 0.5.

Some of the world’s largest countries by population also decreased significantly, including India and Brazil. Across most of the top 10, the “freedom of expression” indicator was hit particularly hard, with notable increases in media censorship to be found in Afghanistan and Brazil.

Countries Becoming More Democratic

Here are the 10 countries that saw the largest increase in EDI score since 2010:

Country	Democracy Index (2010)	Democracy Index (2022)	Points Gained
🇦🇲 Armenia	0.34	0.74	+40
🇫🇯 Fiji	0.14	0.40	+26
🇬🇲 The Gambia	0.25	0.50	+25
🇸🇨 Seychelles	0.45	0.67	+22
🇲🇬 Madagascar	0.28	0.48	+20
🇹🇳 Tunisia	0.40	0.56	+16
🇱🇰 Sri Lanka	0.42	0.57	+15
🇬🇼 Guinea-Bissau	0.41	0.56	+15
🇲🇩 Moldova	0.59	0.74	+15
🇳🇵 Nepal	0.46	0.59	+13

Armenia, Fiji, and Seychelles saw significant improvement in the autonomy of their electoral management bodies in the last 10 years. Partially as a result, both Armenia and Seychelles have seen their scores rise above 0.5.

The Gambia also saw great improvement across many election indicators, including the quality of voter registries, vote buying, and election violence. It was one of five African countries to make the top 10 most improved democracies.

With the total number of democracies and non-democracies almost tied over the past four years, it is hard to predict the political atmosphere in the future.

Want to know more about democracy in today’s world? Check out our global breakdown of each country’s democratic score in Mapped: The State of Global Democracy in 2022.