Our population statistics cover age, sex, race, Hispanic origin, migration, ancestry, language use, veterans, as well as population estimates and projections.
The U.S. Census Bureau is the official source of statistical data tracking the national economy.
Business is a large part of America's diverse economy. This section provides key information about businesses in your community.
This section provides information on a range of educational topics, from educational attainment and school enrollment to school districts, costs and financing.
We measure the state of the nation's workforce, including employment and unemployment levels, weeks and hours worked, occupations, and commuting.
Our statistics highlight trends in household and family composition, describe characteristics of the residents of housing units, and show how they are related.
Health statistics on insurance coverage, disability, fertility and other health issues are increasingly important in measuring the nation's overall well-being.
We measure the housing and construction industry, track homeownership rates, and produce statistics on the physical and financial characteristics of our homes.
Income is the gauge many use to determine the well-being of the U.S. population. Survey and census questions cover poverty, income, and wealth.
The U.S. Census Bureau is the official source for U.S. export and import statistics and regulations governing the reporting of exports from the U.S.
The U.S. Census Bureau provides data for the Federal, state and local governments as well as voting, redistricting, apportionment and congressional affairs.
Geography is central to the work of the Bureau, providing the framework for survey design, sample selection, data collection, tabulation, and dissemination.
Find resources on how to use geographic data and products with statistical data, educational blog postings, and presentations.
The Geographic Support System Initiative will integrate improved address coverage, spatial feature updates, and enhanced quality assessment and measurement.
Work with interactive mapping tools from across the Census Bureau.
Find geographic data and products such as Shapefiles, KMLs, TIGERweb, boundary files, geographic relationship files, and reference and thematic maps.
Metropolitan and micropolitan areas are geographic entities used by Federal statistical agencies in collecting, tabulating, and publishing Federal statistics.
Find information about specific partnership programs and learn more about our partnerships with other organizations.
Definitions of geographic terms, why geographic areas are defined, and how the Census Bureau defines geographic areas.
We conduct research on geographic topics such as how to define geographic areas and how geography changes over time.
Official audio files from the Census Bureau, including "Profile America," a daily series of bite-sized statistics, placing current data in a historical context.
Read briefs and reports from Census Bureau experts.
Read research analyses from Census Bureau experts.
Find information using interactive applications to get statistics from multiple surveys.
Find a multitude of DVDs, CDs and publications in print by topic.
These external sites provide more data.
Download software to display, extract, map, process, and/or tabulate census and survey data.
Learn more about our data from this collection of e-tutorials, presentations, webinars and other training materials. Sign up for training sessions.
Learn more about our data from this collection of e-tutorials, presentations, webinars and other training materials. Sign up for training sessions.
Explore Census data with interactive visualizations covering a broad range of topics.
If you have received a survey, this site will help you verify that the survey came from us, understand and complete the form, and know how we protect your data.
This is the 2020 Census redirect
This is the 2020 Census redirect
National and state population totals from the 2010 Census were released on December 21, 2010
The American Community Survey (ACS) is a mandatory, ongoing statistical survey that samples a small percentage of the population every year.
The AHS is sponsored by the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau.
The Economic Census is the U.S. government's official five-year measure of American business and the economy.
Collects data and measures change for many topics including: economic well-being, family dynamics, education, assets, health insurance, and childcare.
Most recent releases from the Newsroom.
Find media toolkits, advisories, and all the latest Census news.
The Census Bureau's Director writes on how we measure America's people, places and economy.
Find media toolkits, advisories, and all the latest Census news.
See what's coming up in releases and reports.
Find media toolkits, advisories, and all the latest Census news.
Access to embargoed releases for news and media outlets.
Information about the U.S. Census Bureau.
Information about what we do at the U.S. Census Bureau.
Our researchers explore innovative ways to conduct surveys, increase respondent participation, reduce costs, and improve accuracy.
The regional offices are responsible for all data collection, data dissemination, and geographic operations under a new service area boundary.
Learn about other opportunities to collaborate with us.
Explore the rich historical background of an organization with roots almost as old as the nation.
Explore prospective positions available at the U.S. Census Bureau.
The Census Bureau is hiring across the United States, search temporary positions
Learn about other opportunities to collaborate with us.
On May 31, 1889, flood waters devastated Jonestown, PA, after the South Fork Dam on the Little Conemaugh River failed, killing more than 2,200. The United States would not experience a deadlier disaster until the 1900 Galveston Hurricane.
Return next month to learn more about the flood and the lives it impacted using census data and records.
The U.S. Census Bureau's special agent Ivan Petrof conducted the first enumeration of the Alaskan territory in 1880. At that time, the territory's population was 33,426. During the 1960 Census—the first following Alaskan statehood—the population was 226,167.
Today, Alaska is home to 739,795. Its most remote areas are counted months before the rest of the nation's population so enumerators can take advantage of frozen lakes, rivers, and paths allowing them to more easily reach villages by snowmobile and dogsled, like this mushing 1940 Census enumerator.
In 2020, the nation's population count will begin in Toksook Bay, AK. The remote village in Alaska's Bethel Census Area was home to an estimated 661 people in 2017.
After a 9-month journey through some of the most severe conditions on Earth, an expedition led by Robert E. Peary claimed it was the first to reach the geographic North Pole on April 6, 1909. As the expedition sailed home in early September 1909, Peary telegraphed the New York Times from Labrador, Canada—"I have the pole." Much to Peary's dismay, the Royal Danish Geographic Society was honoring another explorer—Dr. Frederick A. Cook—for his claimed discovery of the North Pole months earlier. Controversy over the competing claims continues more than 110 years later.
Frederick Cook, Peary's friend and doctor during previous Arctic expeditions, departed on his quest for the North Pole in July 1907 from Gloucester, MA. He spent the winter in Annoatok, Greenland, before setting off for the pole in February 1908. Surviving on musk ox meat and pemmican (made from the meat and fat of beef, musk ox, and walrus), Cook reported that he and his assistants calculated by sextant readings that they reached the geographic North Pole on April 21, 1908. Harsh conditions and open water forced the men to shelter in a cave for months before continuing their journey home. The emaciated expedition arrived in Annoatok 14 months after leaving. After another grueling 700-mile trek south to Upernavik, Greenland, Cook boarded a ship to Copenhagen, Denmark. On September 1, 1909, he reported his discovery of the North Pole to the New York Herald from the telegraph station in the Shetland Islands.
While Cook was away, Robert Peary and 23 men, including his decades-long African American assistant Mathew Henson, departed New York city aboard the S.S. Roosevelt, bound for Ellesmere Island, in present day Nunavut Territory, Canada, on July 6, 1908. The expedition left the Ellsmere camp on March 1, 1909, and slowly wound its way over glaciers and pack ice toward the pole. Covering as many as 15 miles a day by dogsled, Peary, Henson, and two assistants reached what they believed was the geographic North Pole on April 6, 1909.
Robert Peary first learned of Cook's expedition on his return trip from the North Pole. During a stop in Annoatok, Peary initially dismissed rumors of Cook's success. However, after learning from more reliable sources in late August that Cook was on his way to Copenhagen to announce his discovery, he ordered the Roosevelt to sail at top speed to the nearest telegraph station so he could relay his own announcement to the New York Times. Days after the New York Herald published Cook's announcement, the headline of the New York Times' September 7 edition read, "Peary Discovers the North Pole After Eight Trials in 23 Years."
Once in the United States, Peary, the Peary Arctic Club, and the explorer's wealthy financiers, orchestrated a campaign to challenge Cook's credibility. As the controversy over who reached the pole first grew more contentious, the National Geographic Society (which financed Peary's expeditions) named former U.S. Census Bureau geographer Henry Gannett to chair a committee tasked with examining evidence of the two men's North Pole claims. Much to Cook's chagrin, many of the records documenting his claim had been left behind in Greenland. In April 1909, Harry Whitney, a hunter traveling with Peary's expedition, offered to deliver Cook's records to New York City. However, Peary chartered the ship that arrived to bring Whitney home and the explorer refused Whitney's pleas to load Cook's boxes. Cook's records were never seen again, leaving him unable to substantiate his claim to the pole. Unable to examine Cook's records (and favoring Peary from the start), Gannett and his committee unanimously ruled in favor of Peary in December 1909. Although Peary's records and responses to questions raised concerns among members of a 1911 congressional subcommittee reviewing the expedition, the House Committee on Naval Affairs supported a bill that authorized the President of the United States to place Robert Peary on the retired list of the Corps of Civil Engineers with the rank of rear admiral, thus formally recognizing Peary as first to the North Pole and awarding him a rear admiral's pension.
Peary retired to Harpswell, ME. He died on February 20, 1920, and is buried at Arlington National Cemetery. Frederick Cook published an account of his polar expedition in 1911, but without the detailed records left behind in Greenland, public support favored Peary. Cook opened oil exploration companies in Wyoming and Texas, and was convicted of mail fraud related to those companies in 1923. He received parole in 1930, and a pardon by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in May 1940. Until his death in August 1940, Cook asserted that he was first at the North Pole.
Today, many researchers studying polar expedition records conclude that Peary may not have stood at the North Pole, but he was probably as close to that point on the Arctic Ocean's ice as the instruments of the day could accurately record. Following Peary's expedition, many explorers, scientists, and naval vessels (like the U.S.S. Nautilus) reached the North Pole by sea and air. It was not until April 19, 1968, that a snowmobile-riding Minnesotan named Ralph Plaisted completed the first undisputed over-land trek to the North Pole with three companions. Their arrival at the pole was confirmed by sextant readings and aircraft circling overhead. Today, approximately 1,000 people visit and confirm their arrival at the geographic North Pole annually, thanks to the help of global positioning satellites.
You can learn more about Robert Peary and the exploration of the Earth's polar regions using census data and records. For example:
Census Day 2020 is just 1 year away! Most households throughout the United States and its territories will receive and return their census questionnaires by mail.
The 1960 Census was the first to mail questionnaires to most householders who completed the questionnaire with data that was accurate as of April 1, 1960. An enumerator visited to collect the forms soon after.
In 1960, the nation was home to nearly 180 million people. Sixty years later, the U.S. Census Bureau anticipates counting about 330 million people!
J. Presper Eckert, Jr. was born 100 years ago on April 9, 1919.
Eckert cofounded the Eckert-Mauchly Computer Corporation with John Mauchly in 1945. In 1951, they delivered UNIVAC I to the Census Bureau where it tabulated the 1950 Population and Housing and 1954 Economic censuses.
Through mergers and acquisitions, Eckert's company ultimately becoming Unisys Corporation in 1986. Eckert retired from Unisys in 1989, but continued to consult on projects until his death in June 1995.
The Census Bureau decommissioned its last Unisys computer—the Unisys Clearpath 4400—in 2010.