The US has the third largest population in the world, but almost a third of the 340 million inhabitants of America live in just three states.
With the help of data from the Census Bureau, the visual capitalist capitalist of data visualization has again thought of what the nation would look like if states were changed by the population.
Vermont and Wyoming are bound for the lowest populations in the US with only 600,000 residents each and the reflection of the number of residents makes them so small, they can hardly be seen on the map.
And although Alaska is the largest state per land surface, extends over more than 665,000 square miles, it has the third largest population with only 700,000 inhabitants.
These states are overshadowed by California, Texas and Florida – the three most populated states in the US on 39.4 million, 31.3 million and 23.4 million inhabitants respectively.
Together, these three states account for no less than 28 percent of the national population, and one in 10 Americans lives in California.
New York is located just behind them with a population of 19.9 million, a large part of which lives in New York City. The Big Apple alone is the home of more people (8.5 million) than 38 states.
Several large states in the West look smaller on this again drawn card because of their scarce populations, including New Mexico.
Although these are some of the largest states per area, the majority of that country is taken over by parks and agricultural land instead of densely populated communities.
This card is based on population figures from 1 July 2024.
New Jersey would be much greater because of the population of 9.5 million, which seem larger than other states such as Virginia, Oregon and Idaho those limits that almost triple the size.
Northern and South Dopota would shrink dramatically with their small populations that are less than a million.
While North and South Carolina looks in size on the current American map, the first more country would cover with its 11 million inhabitants – South Carolina is the home of half of so much.
Wyoming and Montana would also take less country with their 0.6 million and 1.1 million populations, together with New Mexico that has 2.1 million.
The American population grew by 3.3 million people, or about an increase of one percent, from 2023 to 2024 – the largest annual increase that the country has seen since 2001.
According to the Census Bureau, the most important engine of this growth was immigration to the US from other countries.
California is the most destroyed state in the US at 39.4 million inhabitants, of which almost 4 million live alone in Los Angeles
Immigration accounted for 84 percent of the population growth of the country from 2023 to 2024, with 2.8 million people who moved to the US that year.
The South is the closest and fastest growing region of the US.
This collection of states saw a population of 1.8 million people – about an increase of 1.4 percent – between 2023 and 2024.
For example, the South added more people than all other regions together.
Wyoming is so small on the map that you can hardly see it. This state is bound by the lowest population in the US, largely because a considerable part of the land area is national parks or farms
Texas and Florida had the greatest profit per head of all southern states, with more than 560,000 and 460,000 new inhabitants respectively.
The district of Columbia, which regards the census as its own state, grew the fastest (2.2 percent) between 2023 and 2024.
The population in the West grew by nearly 688,000 people, or 0.9 percent.
California achieved more than 230,000 new inhabitants from 2023 to 2024 and Arizona won nearly 110,000 – the largest profit per head of all Western states.
But Utah and Nevada grew the fastest, with an increase of 1.8 percent and 1.7 percent respectively.
The northeast grew 0.76 percent from 2023 to 2024, with an increase of nearly 435,000 new inhabitants.
What is more, the number of people moving from the northeast to other parts of the country has continued to slow down, because the region lost fewer residents by people who left in 2024 than in 2023.
In the northeast, New York had the largest increase per head of the population of nearly 130,000 people, but New Jersey had the fastest population growth of 1.3 percent.
In the midwest, the population increased by more than 410,000 people, or around 0.6 percent, in 2024.
Just like in the northeast, this region also had fewer people who live in other parts of the US in 2024 than in 2023.
Illinois and Ohio had the largest population profit per head of the population of nearly 68,000 and 60,000 people respectively.
North Dakota and Nebraska grew the fastest, both increase by about one percent.
Understanding the US in terms of state population is a useful way to look at which parts of the country have the most political influence, according to Visual capitalist.
National states with scarce population, for example, can still have a major influence on presidential elections because of the Kiescollege and the Senate.
And because more densely populated urban areas tend to lean politics to the left, while rural areas with low populations lean to the right, the gap between population-based representation and geographically-based influence, Visual Capitalist reported.
