The United States Census Bureau (officially Bureau of the Census) is a part of the United States Department of Commerce. Its mission is defined in the Constitution of the United States, which directs that the population be enumerated at least once every ten years (through the U.S. Census), and the number of Representatives in Congress determined accordingly. It also is in charge of collecting statistics about the nation, its people, and economy.
The Census Bureau's establishment is codified in Title 13 of the United States Code.
US Census Bureau Regions
Since 1903, the official census-taking organ of the United States government has been the Bureau of the Census. The Bureau is headed by a Director, assisted by a Deputy Director and an Executive Staff composed of the associate directors. The Bureau has 12 regional offices (Atlanta, Dallas, Los Angeles, Boston, Denver, New York, Charlotte, Detroit, Philadelphia, Chicago, Kansas City, and Seattle) with additional processing centers set up temporarily for the decennial censuses.
The sole purpose of the censuses and surveys is to secure general statistical information. Replies are obtained from individuals and establishments only to enable the compilation of such general statistics. The confidentiality of these replies is very important. By law, no one — neither the census takers nor any other Census Bureau employee — is permitted to reveal identifiable information about any person, household, or business.
The bureau recognizes four census regions within the United States, and further organizes them into nine divisions. These regions are groupings of states that subdivide the United States for the presentation of data. They should not be construed as bound together by any geographical, historical, or cultural concerns. The regions are as follows:
Geographic Areas Reference Manual (http://www.census.gov/geo/www/garm.html) from the U.S. Census Bureau contains detailed explanations of geographic terms used in the census.
The U.S. is considered to have the most powerful military in the world, in part due to the size of its defense budget; the American defense expenditures in 2005 was estimated to be greater than the next 14 largest national military budgets combined.
A satellite composite image of the contiguous U.S. Deciduous vegetation and grasslands prevail in the east, transitioning to prairies, boreal forests, and the Rocky Mountains in the west, and deserts in the southwest.
Altogether, the U.S. government owns 1,020,779 square miles (2,643,807 km²) which is 28.8% of the total land area of the U.S. The bulk of this land is protected park and forestland; but some is leased for oil and gas exploration, mining, and cattle ranching.
The practice of including non-citizens in the official census figures is highly controversial as the census is used for the apportionment between the states of seats in the House of Representatives, and derived from that, of electors to the Electoral College.
The Census also employs the practice of using hot deck imputation to assign data to housing units where occupation status is unknown.
The eighth Census estimated the population of the United States at 31,400,000.
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