308,745,538

(Map here.)

Our population shifts south and west!

Some liberal commentators fret about the resulting loss of liberal power, but so be it, if that's where the people are. I certainly don't worry about it. And in any event, the loss of liberal power may be only temporary, since much of the population shift is between cities, and next to the regional North-South split, the urban-rural, liberal-conservative divide remains decisively important in American politics, as it has for at least the last 140 years, and especially so in the 1920's and 2000's.

(Interestingly, this MSNBC page doesn't mention Nevada's pick-up.) It's also important to emphasize that Nevada's gain of a Congressional seat in this census may prove only temporary if an improvement in Nevada's unemployment rate isn't forthcoming in a timely manner.:

WASHINGTON — After knocking on 50 million doors and handling tens of millions of surveys, the Census Bureau on Tuesday announced that the official population of the United States is now 308,745,538.

The 2010 census also shows America's once-torrid population growth dropping to its lowest level in seven decades.

The new number, based on the surveys taken on April 1, 2010, is a 9.7 percent increase over the last census, 281.4 million residents in 2000.

But that's slower than the 13.2 percent increase from 1990 to 2000. And it's the slowest rate of increase since the 1940 census. That is the decade in which the Great Depression slashed the population growth rate by more than half, to 7.3 percent.

The Census figures will be used to reapportion the 435 House seats among the 50 states. The numbers trigger a high-stakes process wherein the dominant party in each state redraws the election map, shaping the political landscape for the next 10 years.

In Congress, the steady migration to the South and West should be a boon for Republicans, with GOP-leaning states led by Texas picking up House seats.

The U.S. is still growing quickly relative to other developed nations. The population in France and England each increased roughly 5 percent over the past decade, while in Japan the number is largely unchanged and in Germany the population is declining. China grew at about 6 percent; Canada's growth rate is roughly 10 percent.

...The most populous state was California (37,253,956); the least populous, Wyoming (563,626).

The state that gained the most numerically since 2010 was Texas (up 4,293,741 to 25,145,561); the state that gained the most as a percentage was Nevada (up 35 percent to 2,700,551).