U.S. Census Office, Population of Urban to Total Population, by States and Territories, 1790 to 1890 (1898)

This series of bar graphs is from the Statistical Atlas of the United States based upon Results of the Eleventh Census, published by the U.S. Census Office in 1898 under the direction of Henry Gannett. The series visualizes the percentage of the total population living in urban areas in each state or territory between 1790 and 1890. If the proportion of the population living in urban areas for any state or territory was less than 1% in a given Census year, the Census year was excluded from the graph. As noted in the display, Colorado, Nevada, and Florida were excluded because they had urban populations only in 1880 and 1890. The newly admitted states of Wyoming, Idaho, Washington, Montana, and the Dakotas were also excluded. At the time, the U.S. Census Office defined an urban area as having 8,000 people or more (p. 16). Overall, the graph displays 19th-century demographic shifts, with rising urban populations due to urbanization and industrialization, including five states (Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, and Conneticut) that, by 1890, had a majority of their population living in cities.