States With the Most People Over 100

September 14, 2016 by Douglas A. McIntyre

Based on the 2010 Census, the last one that gave a great deal of treatment to Americans over 100, the count of this group nationwide was less than 55,000. The Census made the point that this group would grow. People who are over 100 are not spread evenly among the U.S. population. As a matter of fact, their presence by state based on their percentage of the overall population varies considerably.

Few people in America are over 100, particularly compared to many other countries. The Census commented:

The centenarian share of the total population is smaller than that for other developed countries. The U.S. proportion, 1.73 centenarians per 10,000 people, is lower than the proportion in Sweden (1.92 per 10,000), the United Kingdom (1.95 per 10,000), and France (2.70 per 10,000) (Statistics Sweden, 2010; Human Mortality Database, 2012). The U.S. proportion is about half the level found in Japan, 3.43 per 10,000 (Statistics Bureau of Japan, 2011).

The characteristics of the very old are different between the balance of the population:

For every 100 centenarian females, there were only 20.7 centenarian males.

Also:

In 2010, 82.5 percent of centenarians were White alone, compared with 72.4 percent White alone in the total population Of the centenarian population, 12.2 percent were Black or African American alone, compared with 12.6 percent in the total population. The Asian alone share of the centenarian population was 2.5 percent, while its share of the total population was 4.8 percent. Those who were Some Other Race alone in 2010 made up 1.3 percent of centenarians but 6.2 percent of the total population.

Geographically, North Dakota has the largest portion people who are over 100, at 0.000329%. This represented 221 people. Next was South Dakota at 0.000295%, or 240 people. Following in order, Iowa at 0.000278%, or 846 people; Nebraska at 0.000274%, or 501 people; Connecticut at 0.000260%, or 930 people; New York at 0.000238%, or 4,605 people; Rhode Island at 0.000235%, or 247 people; Massachusetts at 0.000232%, or 1,520; and Minnesota at 0.000228%, or 1,211 people.

Whether the presence of the Plains States at the top of the list means anything is probably impossible to pin down.

At the other end of the list are Kentucky at 0.000137%, or 596 people; Louisiana at 0.000137%, or 594 people; Arizona at 0.000130%, or 832 people; Wyoming at 0.000128%, or 72 people; Georgia at 0.000118%, or 1,141 people; Colorado at 0.000118%, or 593 people; Texas at 0.000116%, or 2,917 people; Nevada at 0.000075%, or 203 people; Utah at 0.000067%, or 186 people; and Alaska at 0.000056%, or 40 people.

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