The 1900 United States census, conducted by the Census Office on June 1, 1900, determined the resident

population Population is a set of humans or other organisms in a given region or area. Governments conduct a census to quantify the resident population size within a given jurisdiction. The term is also applied to non-human animals, microorganisms, and pl ...

of the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

to be 76,212,168, an increase of 21.01% from the 62,979,766 persons enumerated during the 1890 census. It was the last census to be conducted before the founding of the permanent United States Census Bureau. The census saw the nation's largest city,

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

, more than double in size due to the consolidation with Brooklyn, becoming in the process the first U.S. city to record a population growth of over three million —

Brooklyn Brooklyn is a Boroughs of New York City, borough of New York City located at the westernmost end of Long Island in the New York (state), State of New York. Formerly an independent city, the borough is coextensive with Kings County, one of twelv ...

was previously the 4th largest city in the United States on its own. Oversight of the statistics was by Frederick Howard Wines and Walter F. Willcox.

Census questions

The 1900 census collected the following information: * address * name * relationship to head of family * sex * race (listed as "Color or race" on the census) * age, month and year born * marital status and, if married, number of years married * for women, number of children born and number now living * place of birth of person, and their parents * if foreign born, year of immigration and whether naturalized * occupation * months not employed * school * ability to speak English * whether on a farm * home owned or rented, and, if owned, whether mortgaged Full documentation for the 1900 census, including census forms and enumerator instructions, is available from the

Integrated Public Use Microdata Series IPUMS, originally the ''Integrated Public Use Microdata Series'', is the world's largest individual-level population database. IPUMS consists of microdata samples from United States ''(IPUMS-USA)'' and international ''(IPUMS-International)'' cens ...

. Statistician Frederick Ludwig Hoffman criticized the conduct of the census.

Data availability

The original census enumeration sheets were microfilmed by the Census Bureau in the 1940s, after which the original sheets were destroyed. The microfilmed census is available in rolls from the

National Archives and Records Administration The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) is an independent agency of the United States government within the executive branch, charged with the preservation and documentation of government and historical records. It is also task ...

. Several organizations also host images of the microfilmed census online, and digital indices. Microdata from the 1900 census are freely available through

IPUMS IPUMS, originally the ''Integrated Public Use Microdata Series'', is the world's largest individual-level population database. IPUMS consists of microdata samples from United States ''(IPUMS-USA)'' and international ''(IPUMS-International)'' cens ...

Aggregate data Aggregate data is high-level data which is acquired by combining individual-level data. For instance, the output of an industry is an aggregate of the firms’ individual outputs within that industry. Aggregate data are applied in statistics, d ...

for small areas, together with electronic boundary files, can be downloaded from the

National Historical Geographic Information System The National Historical Geographic Information System (NHGIS) is a historical GIS project to create and freely disseminate a database incorporating all available aggregate United States Census, census information for the United States between Uni ...

State rankings

City rankings

Locations of 50 most populous cities

References

External links

1901 U.S. Census Report
(contains 1900 census results)

* https://web.archive.org/web/20200717185528/https://www.census.gov/population/www/censusdata/PopulationofStatesandCountiesoftheUnitedStates1790-1990.pdf {{Authority control United States Census, 1900 United States census