NEGenWeb Project
Resource Center
On--Line Library

     More than one-half the population of the state lives in incorporated cities and villages. More than one-third of the total population now lives in cities of more than 2,500 inhabitants. During the past twentyfive years the growth of Nebraska's municipal population has been greater than of the rural population. In the eastern half of Nebraska the increase of town population has far exceeded that of the country. In fact many rural counties and precincts in eastern Nebraska show an absolute decrease of population between 1920 and 1930. The problems of municipal government, even in our own farming and grazing region, now directly involve more than half of our population.
     The figures of the United States census in the table which follows are not wholly satisfactory, for two principal reasons:
     (1) The censuses of 1860, of 1870 and of 1880 in many cases did not separate the population of incorporated towns from that of the precincts where they were situated.
     (2) In Nebraska the United States census of 1890 was a stuffed and fraudulent census, the population of a number of cities being grossly exaggerated.

COMPARISON OF NEBRASKA CITIES AND VILLAGES WITH RURAL
POPULATION, 1860-1930

1860			49	12,939	12,9391	15,902	28,841	55,4
1870	2	22,133	69	37.184	59,3171	63.676	122,993	51.8
1880	7	86.872	180	64,077	140.949	311,453	452.402	68.6
1890	16	291,641	231	141,808	433,4492	629,207	1,062,656	59.2
1900	21	252,702	346	188,955	441,657	624.643	1,066,304	58.6
1910	27	810,352	427	243,292	654,144	638,070	1,192,210	53.5
1920	31	405,306	482	276.568	680,874	615,874	1,296,372	47.5
1930	35	487,107	494	268.083	755.190	622.773	1,377,963	45.1

¹ Population of cities and villages not separated from precincts by this census except in some cases.
² City population as shown by this census report greatly in excess of true population.

© 2002 for the NEGenWeb Project by Pam Rietsch, Ted & Carole Miller