U.S. Census Overview
Origins, Structure, and Content
Factfinding is one of America’s oldest activities. In the early 1600s, a census was taken in Virginia, and people were counted in nearly all of the British colonies that became the United States at the time of the Revolutionary War. (There were also censuses in other areas of the country before they became parts of the United States.) Following independence, there was an almost immediate need for a census of the entire Nation. Both the number of seats each State was to have in the U.S. House of Representatives and the States’ respective shares in paying for the war were…
