Which state is fullest of people born right there? 🏠
1Guess
Some people spend their whole life in the state where they were born; others arrive from somewhere else. Out of every 100 people living in a state, how many were born in that same state? Tap the states most-to-least.
Tapping assigns 1→4 in order
Texas! Everyone in Texas is a Texan, obviously 🐾
2Answer
The real order is…
Louisiana — about 77 out of every 100 people living there were born there, more than 3 out of 4. Now look at the other end of the list: in Nevada it is 28.5 out of 100, fewer than 3 in 10. For the country as a whole the answer is about 56.5. And here is the part that trips people up — this is not about big or small, crowded or empty. Michigan and Ohio — the 10th and 7th most populous states — come #2 and #3, while Wyoming, the state with the fewest people in the country, sits near the bottom at about 40 out of 100. Texas? Right in the middle, at #25.
📚 BackgroundAsk a hundred people in Louisiana where they were born and about 77 will answer: Louisiana. Ask the same question in Nevada and only about 29 will answer Nevada. What is strange about this map is what it does not follow. It is not about big or small, crowded or empty: Ohio and Michigan, the 7th and 10th most populous states, come right behind Louisiana, while Wyoming — the state with the fewest people in the country — sits near the bottom. A low number here has one plain meaning: most of the people living there came from somewhere else.(U.S. Census Bureau, ACS 2024)
Note: from the American Community Survey, which the Census Bureau sends to a sample of about 3.5 million addresses a year — not to everybody. So every number here is an estimate, published with a give-or-take. Everyone living in the state counts toward the 100, including people born in another country, so a state where many people arrived from abroad shows a smaller share. U.S. Census Bureau, ACS 2024 1-year estimates.
So most people in Nevada came from somewhere else?! 🐾