Tuesday, May 10, 2011

Stuck in the Middle With (897,933 of) You

Census Bureau Director Robert Groves was out in the tiny village of Plato, Missouri, yesterday to unveil a National Geodetic Survey disc commemorating Plato as the new national center of population.

The Census Bureau calculates the center of population after each census as "the place where an imaginary, flat, weightless and rigid map of the United States would balance perfectly if all residents were of identical weight." The center of population has moved slowly west and south from Kent County, Maryland, in 1790 to Missouri.

The Census Bureau also calculates the center of population for each state. In 2010, the center of population for the 897,934 of us counted in Delaware was northeast of Smyrna, along Route 9.

2 comments:

MH McGrath said...

To give credit, where credit is due, your Delaware center could be accurately referred to as Fleming's Landing - otherwise famous only for the site of several vehicles going overboard through the years! (and one of the lowest vertical control benchmarks in Delaware) The people of Fleming's Landing (miniscule in number themselves!)deserve to be recognized for something more noble.

mmahaffie said...

I was rather thinking "field trip." But it doesn't really match with my current job, so it'll have to be a weekend some time.

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