There is a lot of speculation here on what this means, so I looked it up. The median center is the point through which a north-south and an east-west line each divides the total population of the country in half. This is different from the "center of population", which is the balance point if you took an imaginary flat surface and put an identical weight on it for each person. These are both different from the geometric median.<p>This document explains how the census bureau computed the values and has equations. There are complications since the earth is a sphere (as far as the census bureau is concerned): <a href="https://www2.census.gov/programs-surveys/decennial/2010/program-management/4-release/press-kit/center-of-population/centers-of-population-computation-documentation.pdf" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www2.census.gov/programs-surveys/decennial/2010/prog...</a>
It will be interesting to see if this line starts moving back north if (when?) summers and heat in general continue to be this brutal. I'm a native Floridian and love it here, but I'll be damned if I haven't given thought to moving back somewhere a little more temperate after these past 2-3 months.
I know there's a lot of reasons for this, but I think weather is one of the biggest. I wonder if that ever reverses from extreme heat. Is a full month of 110+ degrees having people reconsider Arizona?
Looks like the 2020 line is just east of Chicago and just north of the SFBA.<p>The line can't move West or South too quickly as every additional minute represents so many people shifting from one side of the median to the other.
A couple interesting things here: first, what was that loop circa 1890-1940? I can't think of any major trends that would cause a westward and northward shift of the population except for the industrialization and de-industrialization of the midwest, though in my mind, de-industrialization (and thus population shifts) only occured in the 1980s or so. Second, why did it shift so drastically in the 1970s? You would expect a massive shift in the 1840s and 1850s with the Oregon Trail and Manifest Destiny, but I can't think of any shift in US history that would cause that large. Third, I'm curious where this dot would be during the Revolution (probably somewhere in North Carolina, I would guess), or during Columbus.
I'm not sure what median Center of population means. Mean would be the geographic center accounting for location. Is the median just the 50th percentile in latitude and longitude?
I'm surprised to see a data point for the 1890 census given that much of the records were destroyed in a fire.<p><a href="https://www.census.gov/history/www/genealogy/decennial_census_records/availability_of_1890_census.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.census.gov/history/www/genealogy/decennial_censu...</a>
Mathematically rigorous definition of "median center of population":<p><a href="https://www2.census.gov/geo/pdfs/reference/cenpop2020/COP2020_documentation.pdf" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www2.census.gov/geo/pdfs/reference/cenpop2020/COP202...</a>
Amazing how little distance it's moved. Maybe it should be obesity-weighted to show it better.<p>Oh wait, that would not help. Maybe that's why it hasn't moved much...
Hmm... The "Dwight D. Eisenhower National System of Interstate and Defense Highways"? Started around 1956.<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_highway" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_highway</a>
I believe Washington DC was close to the median center at the founding of the US. I've often wondered about the effect on US government if the seat of the executive (white house), legislative (capitol), and judicial (supreme court) branches had to move to the median center after every census. We need something to reduce the influence of K street. Something to keep the lobbyists from getting too cozy would be nice.