State of California
Arnold Schwarzenegger, Governor
Department of Finance
Michael C. Genest
This report provides in tabular form the published population totals for 1,460
listed places, towns, and cities in California from each of the sixteen decennial
US Censuses , 1850-2000.
The table is an effort to list all recognized settlements of any size, as listed by the Census Bureau. "Settlements" in this context should be understood to mean cities, towns, villages, hamlets, Census Designated Places (CDPs), and some unincorporated areas. Not included are townships, districts, parishes, precincts, or wards.
Notes:
Places are listed as part of the most recent county in which they were located. For example, Anaheim is designated as part of Orange County, although originally it was part of Los Angeles County.
Places are listed under their most recent name or designation, as well as the most recent spelling. For example, Colma is listed under its current name, and not Lawndale, as it was previously known. Users with Microsoft Excel-compatible spreadsheet programs should be able to access the notations of a place's alternate names or spellings in the notes attached to individual cells in the place/town/city column.
The boundaries of incorporated cities are usually well-defined, but they are not constant. Hence population change over time in a given place may reflect not only population growth, but a change in the area of an incorporated place. Non-incorporated areas usually have less well-defined boundaries.
The list includes only places listed by the Census Bureau, not all existing places. The Census Bureau usually had a minimum population threshold for listing places, usually 1,000 or 2,500, depending on the particular census, unless the place was incorporated. Consequently there are numerous smaller places which are not listed in this table.
Only populations from the US decennial censuses are listed. Special censuses, conducted by either the US Census Bureau or the state, have been omitted. Where applicable, the populations provided are the corrected or revised totals.
The 1850 Census did not distinguish between cities and towns, and less well-defined places such as townships. Consequently, the 1850 figures do include population counts for some townships.
An HTML-version of the table would take too long to load, and so the table is provided only in spreadsheet format (.xls) for downloading.
Download table of historical populations in .xls format.
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