United States Census Bureau

Seal of the Bureau of the Census

The United States Census Bureau (officially Bureau of the Census) is a part of the United States government that is responsible for the United States Census. The Census Bureau is a part of the United States Department of Commerce.

Legal mandate

The Constitution of the United States says that the population must be counted at least once every ten years (through the U.S. Census). This is done to calculate how many Federal Representatives in Congress each state should have. The Census Bureau is in charge of doing this. It collects statistics about the nation, its people, and its economy. The Census Bureau's legal authority is listed in Title 13 of the United States Code. The first census bureau was in 1790.

Organizational structure

US Census Bureau Regions.

Since 1903, The Bureau of the Census has been the census-taking organization of the United States government. The Bureau is led by a Director, who is helped by a deputy director and associate directors.

The Census Bureau headquarters is located at 4600 Silver Hill Road, Suitland, Maryland. There are regional offices in 12 cities: Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Detroit, Chicago, Kansas City, Seattle, Charlotte, Atlanta, Dallas, Denver, and Los Angeles. More offices are set up and used when it comes time to do the census every 10 years.

Population estimates

The Census Bureau also use real-time extrapolation of information on population, birth, and death to give their estimates of the number of people in the United States and the world.

References

• The original version of this article was adapted from U.S. Census Bureau text.
• What the U.S. Census Bureau does and how it does it are detailed in Title 13 of the United States Code. [1]

Other websites

• United States Census Bureau website
• U.S. and World Population Clocks - POPClocks
• RSS Feed Archived 2010-12-31 at the Wayback Machine