Regional Shares of the Population -1900 to 2000 (Perfent of total population)
Where do we like to live? Where did our grandparents live? The graphic provides some answers. It shows the geographical location of the population from 1900 to 2000 in ten-year intervals.
In 2000, nearly 36% of people lived in the South and 19% in the Northeast. The Midwest and West each had just shy of 23% of the population, the Midwest edging out the West by a nose — but, based on the growth patterns shown, not for long. The leading states were California (33.9 million) and Texas (20.9 million).
A century earlier, the West had just a sprinkling of people, although a man with the ringing name of John Babsone Lane Soule had written the famous words, "Go west, young man," some 49 years before4. California then had a population of 1.48 million. At that time the Midwest was the most populous region, the South a close second, and the Northeast already losing its early dominance — although the two leading states were New York (7.26 million) and Pennsylvania (6.3 million).
During the first half of the century, growth rates were much higher than in the second and set the patterns early. They haven't changed much, although the rates have dropped, as shown in the following table. Periods of most rapid growth are shown in bold.
Annual Population Growth Rates, % per annum, and 2000 Population
| Region/Area | 1900-1950 | 1950-2000 | 1980-2000 | 1900-2000 | Population, Millions. |
| Northeast | 1.266 | 0.613 | 0.435 | 0.939 | 53.6 |
| Midwest | 1.053 | 0.744 | 0.450 | 0.898 | 53.6 |
| South | 1.318 | 1.518 | 1.436 | 1.418 | 100.2 |
| West | 3.137 | 2.308 | 1.924 | 2.722 | 63.2 |
| United States | 1.381 | 1.249 | 1.091 | 1.314 | 281.4 |
From the beginning, the South was a center of agricultural power, beginning with indigo, then tobacco and cotton. Beginning in mid-century, the New South rose and began attracting modern industry. The Midwest drew people with its fertile lands and "amber waves of grain" — also by its stockyards, its "city of big shoulders," Chicago, and the dream of the automobile. The West was gold, frontier, dreams of fame and Hollywood fortune, an enormously productive California agricultural sector and the aerospace industry. And the Northeast began it all with mills of cloth and paper, its mines and shipyards. The Northeast sent forth its children, received new immigrant waves, and still rules the bastions of finance and empires of media.
The land is fairly evenly populated, the West and South expanding their population shares. And everywhere beautiful places beckon — from "sea to shining sea" and places in between.
Source: U.S. Bureau of the Census. "Population and Housing Unit Counts." August 27, 1993, and Census 2000.
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