We recently received an inquiry from a Seniors Count! community partner, asking:

Interesting questions, all. But the answer to even such a simple question as the first can be peppered with caveats. The definitive population count for every place in the United States comes from the Decennial Census, but as the name suggests, that only occurs every ten years. Between those times, estimates are produced by a number of different sources. For example, the American Community Survey, also a U.S. Census Bureau product, uses its sample to extrapolate a population estimate. The better estimates, however, come from the Census' Population Estimates Program. Here are their estimates in answer to question a above: