The Population Of Every US State From 1900 To 2017, Visualized Like A Horse Race

There are many criteria on which to evaluate a state's dominance, but population is one of the most important (and easiest to measure). It's also the closest to a popularity contest — after all, if millions more people are choosing to live in your state than in other states of comparable geographic size, you must be doing something right, right? So it's fascinating to see how the relative population of each state in the US has changed over the past 117 years in this animated graph by Redditor u/ThePedMeister:

As residents of New York, it pains us to see the Empire State start out so strong only to lose the lead by midcentury. But big congrats to California, which appears to be in no position to lose its top ranking anytime soon.

[Via Reddit]