NCRS - The Changing Midwest Assessment

The seven states that comprise the North Central Region were home to more than 47 million people in 2000.

More than 23 million of these people - nearly 50 percent - lived in major metropolitan areas like: Chicago, Detroit, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Indianapolis, Milwaukee, St. Louis and Kansas City, MO. These cities make up less than 5 percent of the total land area of the Region.

Conversely, while nearly 50 percent of the total land area of the Region is designated as "rural," fewer than 5 million people - less than 10 percent - lived in rural communities.

This slide show consists of maps and graphs that depict how population density (number of people per square mile) changed between 1980 and 2000. Change was calculated at the county level using U.S. Census data (Radeloff et.al., 2000).