Geographic Notes 



241 



POPULATION OF AUSTRALIA AND 

 NEW ZEALAND 



THE recent census of Australia, ac- 

 cording to cabled reports, shows 

 that the population of this great confed- 

 eration has increased about 16.9 per cent 

 in the last ten years, or 514,000 in round 

 numbers, which exceeds the rate of 

 growth of England, but falls much be- 

 hind that of the United States. The 

 present population of the island conti- 

 nent is 4,550,651 as against 4,036,570 in 

 1 89 1. Apparently the Australians are 

 spreading out more, for all the cities ex- 

 cept Sydney show a less comparative 

 increase than the country districts. Mel- 

 bourne, for instance, since 1891 has added 

 only 3,000 to her inhabitants and now 

 numbers 493,956. Sydney ten years 

 ago had a population of about 385,000, 

 but the city has grown very rapidly and 

 now is only a few thousand behind Mel- 

 bourne. Victoria has given way to New 

 South Wales as the most populous col- 

 ony, though the former is still the most 

 densely populated. Victoria has a pres- 

 ent population of about 1,196,000, and 

 New South Wales of 1,362,232. 



New Zealand has added 146,000 white 

 persons to her population, vSO that today 

 there are 773,000 white people within 

 her borders. Her rate of growth for the 

 preceding decade is thus 23 per cent, 

 which would tend to show that her rad- 

 ical social laws attract immigrants, not- 

 withstanding the very high per capita 

 debt of the government. Including the 

 Maori, the population of New Zealand 

 is 816,000. 



THE CENTER OF POPULATION OF 

 THE UNITED STATES 



A POINT in the interior of the earth 

 600 miles beneath the city of 

 Nashville, Tenn., has been computed by 

 Mr. Henry Gannett as approximately 

 the center of population of the United 

 States and its dependencies, including 



Alaska, Cuba, Porto Rico, and the Phil- 

 ippines. In other words, the center is 

 beneath the intersection of the 36th 

 parallel with the 87th meridian. 



In computing this center of popula- 

 tion it is necessary to regard the earth 

 as a sphere rather than a plane surface, 

 for Porto Rico and the Philippines are 

 nearly half the earth's circumference 

 apart. 



But if Alaska and the recent territo- 

 rial acquisitions be disregarded, the 

 center of population of the United States 

 is six miles southeast of Columbus, in 

 Bartholomew County, Indiana. In the 

 ten years preceding June i, 1900, the 

 center of population has thus moved 

 westward 14 miles and southward two 

 and one-half miles, the smallest move- 

 ment ever noted by the Census Bureau. 



It shows the population of the West- 

 ern States has not increased as rapidly 

 as in former decades. The southward 

 movement is due largely to the great in- 

 crease in the population of Indian Ter- 

 ritory, Oklahoma, and Texas, and the 

 decreased westward movement to the 

 large increase in the population of the 

 North Atlantic States. 



The center of area of the United 

 States, excluding Alaska and Hawaii 

 and other recent accessions, is in north- 

 ern Kansas. The center of population, 

 therefore, is about three-fourths of a 

 degree south and more than 13 degrees 

 east of the center of area. 



SERVIA 



THE little kingdom of Servia, the 

 actions of whose monarch and his 

 consort have aroused so much comment 

 during the past year, is about .the size 

 of the States of New Hampshire and 

 Vermont combined. Surrounded on all 

 sides by foes or unreliable friends — Bul- 

 garia on the east, Turkey on the south, 

 Roumania and Austro-Hungary on the 

 north and west — its life since it became 

 a semi-independent nation has been a 



