Census.gov — For 236 of America’s 250-year history, the census has measured our nation’s population. It has also tracked our values, interests, and changes in the way we live.
Census questions, how they’re asked and of whom, capture what’s important to American society.
Housing, employment, slavery, manufacturing, immigration, voting access and more. Public demand for information on these topics has fluctuated over the course of American history, punctuated by the census count at the start of each decade.
How did events like the Westward Expansion, the Civil War, the Great Depression and the Civil Rights Movement change the census — and how did it adapt over time?
The framers of the Constitution tied apportionment of the U.S. House of Representatives to a once-a-decade population count, starting with the nation’s first census in 1790.
As a snapshot of the changes America's population has undergone since the first census, below are the overviews of the 1790 census and the most recent 2020 census. To read the decade by decade overview of every census from 1790 through 2020, click here.
The First Census: 1790
The Census Act of 1790 was passed by the First Congress and signed by the nation’s first president, George Washington.
On August 2, 1790, U.S. Marshals began collecting the names of each head of household along with a count of all free White men age 16 and older, free children under age 16, free White women, and all other free and enslaved people.
Most American Indians were not enumerated between 1790 and 1850. Their relationship to federal census-taking would evolve over American history.
The first census took 18 months to complete.
Figure 1: The Census in the Constitution
The government did not provide blank printed forms to enumerators. They used any available paper and recorded all information by hand.
Every person older than 16 was required to cooperate “on pain of forfeiting twenty dollars.”
Enumerated the populations of:
The 13 original states (Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina and Virginia).
The districts of Kentucky, Maine, Vermont and the Southwest Territory (which later became Tennessee).
3,929,214 (including 697,624 enslaved people, or 17.8%).
2020 Pandemic Decennial Census
The 24th census was taken at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. It was the first time that all households had the opportunity to respond to the census online.
Due to the pandemic, the Census Bureau needed extra time, causing it to miss the December 2020 apportionment count deadline.
As part of the 2020 communications campaign, the Census Bureau promoted a rendition of the song “This is Me” featuring a variety of Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander artists from across the country.
10 states each had populations over 10 million.
Responses were accepted online, by mail, by phone, through enumerators or administrative records.
Enumerators were equipped with electronic devices allowing instant data upload.
Satellite imagery was used to update the Census Bureau’s Master Address File.
Figure 24: A Census Taker in 2020
331,449,281, up 7.4% from 2010.
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