The mean center of population is determined as the place where an imaginary, flat, weightless and rigid map of the United States would balance perfectly if all residents were of identical weight.

Year	Center of Population	Location
1790	Kent County, Maryland	23 miles east of Baltimore
1800	Howard County, Maryland	18 miles west of Baltimore
1810	Loudoun County, Virginia	40 miles northwest by west of Washington, D.C.
1820	Hardy County, West Virginia	16 miles east of Moorefield
1830	Grant County, West Virginia	19 miles west-southwest of Moorefield
1840	Upshur County, West Virginia	16 miles south of Clarksburg
1850	Wirt County, West Virginia	23 miles southeast of Parkersburg
1860	Pike County, Ohio	20 miles south by east of Chillcothe
1870	Highland County, Ohio	48 miles east by north of Cincinnati
1880	Boone County, Kentucky	8 miles west by south of Cincinnati
1890	Decatur County, Indiana	20 miles east of Columbus
1900	Bartholomew County, Indiana	6 miles southeast of Columbus
1910	Monroe County, Indiana	In the city of Bloomington
1920	Owen County, Indiana	8 miles south-southeast of Spencer
1930	Greene County, Indiana	3 miles northeast of Linton
1940	Sullivan County, Indiana	2 miles southeast by east of Carlisle
1950	Clay County, Illinois	3 miles northeast of Louisville
1960	Clinton County, Illinois	6.5 miles northwest of Centralia
1970	St. Clair County, Illinois	5 miles east-southeast of Mascoutah
1980	Jefferson County, Missouri	1/4 mile west of DeSoto
1990	Crawford County, Missouri	9.7 miles southeast of Steelville
2000	Phelps County, Missouri	2.8 miles east of Edgar Springs
2010	Texas County, Missouri	2.9 miles from Plato
2020	Wright County, Missouri	14.6 miles northeast of Hartville

1790: Each decade, after it tabulates the decennial census, the Census Bureau calculates the center of population. Historically, it has followed a trail that reflects the sweep of the nation's brush stroke across America's population canvas—the settling of the frontier, waves of immigration and the migration west and south. Since 1790, the location has moved in a westerly, then a more southerly pattern.

1860: The center moved the greatest distance, leaping 80 miles westward. The U.S. had reached the Pacific by 1850, acquiring California, New Mexico, and other parts of the Intermountain West from Mexico; and Oregon Country in the Pacific Northwest. Texas had joined the Union and the 1850s saw substantial growth in the West.

1870: The most northerly movement of the center occurred in 1870, following the Civil War, largely the result of substantial population growth in the cities of the Northeast and Midwest. New York was nearing one million people; Chicago grew by 166 percent between 1860 and 1870. Of the 100 most populous cities in 1870, 80 were in the Northeast or Midwest and these cities increased their populations by approximately 1.6 million.

1920: The center moved the shortest distance—just under 10 miles. When the East experiences high rates of growth, as it did in the decades between 1890 and 1920, the westward movement of the center slows. The decade prior to 1920 saw large increases in immigrant populations in the cities of the Northeast and Midwest as well as the migration of African-Americans out of the South to many of those same cities.

2020: The center moved in the most southerly direction ever. The distance moved—11.8 miles—is the shortest distance since 1920 and second shortest distance moved ever. This southerly drift and shorter distance can be attributed to a strong pull on the center by continued population growth in the Southeast, especially Florida, Georgia, and the Carolinas, the Southwest, and Texas.