Introduction

    Every ten years the U. S. Congress (House of Representatives) is re-apportioned based on the latest decennial census.  In fact, Article 1, Section 2 of the Constitution requires an enumeration of the population every ten years for this very purpose.  In 1911 the number of seats in the House was set at 435 and has not changed since that time (except for a temporary increase to 437 in 1959 when Alaska and Hawaii became states).  Each state must have at least one representative.  The remaining 385 must then be allocated to the states based on a "priority" method that is calculated using a set of multipliers and the state's population.  A detailed discussion of this method can be found at the Census Bureau's web site at  <http://blue.census.gov/population/www/censusdata/apportionment/computing.html>.  The ideal would be to have each member of the House represent the same number of residents, but in practice there turns out to be considerable disparity.

    This study provides a geographic perspective on the changes in congressional apportionment since 1940.  As the U. S. population has shifted to the south and west and declined in the northeast and upper midwest so has congressional apportionment.  The following maps, charts, and tables will allow the reader to observe these locational trends.