The US Population Explosion In One Cool GIF

More than 200 years after the founding of the United States, its residents are still moving west and its cities are becoming increasingly crowded.

National online real estate brokerage Movoto used Social Explorer to generate population density maps using data from the 1790-2000 decennial censuses and the American Home Community Survey five-year estimate for 2010. The GIF they made using the maps shows how America has become denser over time, particularly on its coasts and near metropolises.

In 1790, only small pockets on the east coast had anything approaching a dense population. California's population only starts to significantly grow in the early 1900s, and the south gets progressively denser over the decades.

The U.S. population was 3.9 million in 1970, compared to 76.2 million in 1900 and 313.9 million today.