KENTUCKY POPULATION DENSITY, 1750 - 1990

DAVID C. ELBON
MAY 1997

COPYRIGHT © DAVE ELBON, 1997. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Population Change In Kentucky Archaeological evidence indicates that the land that would become Kentucky was the home to people by 10,500 B.C.E. and signs of settlement have been found in most parts of the state. By the middle of the eighteenth century however, there was only a single permanent American Indian town in the area, in what is now Clark county. It was still an important seasonal hunting territory for the Shawnee from the north, the Cherokee from the south, and the Chickasaw from the west. This was the time of the arrival of the first Anglo-American settlers. Their first settlements were in central Kentucky, beginning about 1774. Their numbers fluctuated for several years before beginning to steadily grow. The rate of growth has slowed, but it continues to the present.

This Quicktime movie illustrates the changing population density in Kentucky from 1750 until 1990. Beginning in 1780 the density is shown by county.

Population Counts

For the years from 1790 through 1990 the federal decennial census of the population provides accurate, more or less, counts. The numbers from earlier years are estimates from various sources (see the Bibliography).

External Boundaries

For the purposes of this study the present external boundaries of Kentucky were used. These boundaries have been vague and often controversial through the years. The Virginia Company's charter extended from sea to sea. Later claims extended west only as far as the Mississippi River, then the Tennessee River, and then after the Jackson Purchase of 1818, back to the Mississippi. The southern boundary between Kentucky and Tennessee, originally the boundary between Virginia and Carolina, was set at 36° 30' north latitude, but locating the line proved difficult and the present boundary deviates from it. There have been disputes regarding the northern boundary which is based on the low water mark on the north shore of the Ohio River. The channels of the Mississippi and Ohio have changed in several places over the years. Another source of confusion was which fork of the Big Sandy River was to be part of the eastern boundary and what path it followed over mountains south of the river.

Internal Boundaries

The internal boundaries of Kentucky - those between the counties - have shifted considerably through the years. As the original poorly surveyed area was populated and subdivided into new counties disagreements often arose. As an example of the cause of the confusion, here is part of the text of the statute that split Woodford county from Fayette in 1788:

All of the said county lying westward of a line to begin one mile and an half above Todd's ferry, on Kentucky river; thence a direct course crossing the North-fork of Elkhorne, four miles in a straight line below William Russel's; thence the same course continued to the line of Bourbon county; thence with the Bourbon line to the mouth of Licking; thence down the Ohio to the mouth of Kentucky river; thence up the river to the beginning, shall be one distinct county, and called and known by the name of Woodford; and the residue of the said county shall retain the name of Fayette.

Method

For this study maps were created for each census year and for a few earlier years for which population estimates are available. This involved creating a nearly annual series of maps indicating the changes in the county boundaries through the years. From these maps the county areas were calculated and used to calculate population densities. These figures were then used to produce the choropleth maps which were combined into an animation illustrating the changes in population over the years.

The original maps were produced using Adobe Illustrator at a scale of 1:1,000,000. MacDraft was used to determine the area of the counties for the years prior to 1900. An Excel spreadsheet and some custom programming were used to calculate population densities from the area and population data and Classy 4.1 was used to determine the class boundaries using the Jenks optimization method. A JPEG image of each final choropleth map (about 24 in all) was produced using Illustrator and Color It was used to reduce each image to final size (about 33%) and produce intermediate images. These JPEG images were then combined into a Quicktime movie using Movie Star and MoviePlayer.

Possible Improvements

For most of the nineteenth century the county boundaries used are not very precise. Further work could produce more accurate maps. A better representation of the population density could be made using divisions smaller than counties. For virtually all census years counts are available for precincts, tracts, or other subdivisions. Separate counts for towns and the surrounding rural areas are also available. This information could be used to create a better series of maps (with a corresponding increase in the amount of data to be located and analyzed) and would prevent some of the artifacts that are the result of the larger county divisions.

Bibliography

Aron, Stephen. How the West was lost: the transformation of Kentucky from Daniel Boone to Henry Clay. The Johns Hopkins University Press. 1996.

Bradford, John, editor. Laws of Kentucky. Lexington. Volumes 1 and 2. 1799.

Clark, Thomas D. A history of Kentucky. The John Bradford Press. 1960.

Greene, Evarts B. and Virginia D. Harrington. American population before the federal census of 1790. Columbia University Press. 1932.

Harrison, Lowell H. and James C. Klotter. A new history of Kentucky. The University Press of Kentucky. 1997.

Hening, William Waller, editor. The statutes at large; being a collection of all the laws of Virginia from the first session of the legislature in the year 1619. Richmond. Volumes 9 through 13. 1821-1823.

Kleber, John E., editor. The Kentucky encyclopedia. The University Press of Kentucky. 1992.

Logan, Laura Brown. The Origin of the Counties of Kentucky. Master of Arts thesis, University of Kentucky. 1951.

Rone, Wendell H. An historical atlas of Kentucky and her counties. Printed by Burkert-Walton, Inc. for Progress Printing Co., Owensboro. 1965.

United States. Census of population. 1790 through 1990.

United States Geological Survey. State of Kentucky, 1:1,000,000. 1973.