ABSTRACT
Missouri has experienced a long period of population growth. Data from the manuscript census of 1870 for Richwoods Township in Miller County provide an overview of the population at the end of the primary phase of settlement. The migration of thousands of Blacks away from the rural South into the urban North has been one of the major shifts in the national population since World War II. Missouri has been very much a part of this shift. Population changes over time have significantly altered the age structure in many counties. Generally speaking, northern Missouri has an older population as a result of a long continuing trend of outmigration. The final population count for 1980 indicates that Missouri's population is 4,906,480, which represents an increase of 5 percent over 1970. Missouri ranks thirteenth among the fifty states in both area and population and twenty-seventh in population density.
