US Population Growth Mapped
At the moment, about 328 million people are living in the U.S, a nation that’s 9.84 million sq km (3.53 million square miles). But during the country’s history, these numbers haven’t stayed fixed.
Population density map of what is now the United States (1492)
It isn’t easy to evaluate populations in the 15th century in America. Most indigenous people lived in small communities. But beginning in the 19th century, archaeology and the research of burials and the material remains of society helped determine native populations before European contact.
Approximations for North America have ranged from 3.8 million to 18 million. Most of the indigenous tribes of America lived along the rivers and on the coasts of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.
The Americas’ peoples had no resistance to Europeans’ diseases because the Americas’ populations had been primarily isolated from Europe. In that time, many deadly diseases evolved in the Old World (smallpox, the plague, measles). As a result, many indigenous peoples died from disease than in war with Europeans.
