US population center shifts southwesterly

The Census Bureau announced yesterday that, based on the 2010 Census, the mean center of population for the country is 2.9 miles east Plato, Mo., an Ozarks village with a population of 109. The center of population is determined as the place where an imaginary, flat and weightless map of the United States would balance perfectly if all 308,745,538 counted residents were of identical weight. Since 1790, the center has moved west, with a more pronounced southerly pattern in the past few decades. The new center is 873 miles from the first center in 1790, which was near Chestertown, Md.