The table charts illustrate how the population of New York City as a whole and its five districts, namely Manhattan, Brooklyn, Bronx, Queens, and Staten Island, changed between 1800 and 2000. Overall, it is evident from the data that there was a significant increase in the population of the city. In addition, while Manhattan initially held the overwhelming majority of the total residents, its proportion gradually declined as people became more evenly distributed across other regions.
In 1800, New York City had around 79,216 residents, with Manhattan alone accommodating 60,500 people, or 76% of the total. In contrast, the other four districts combined together made up 24% of population, or 18,701 in number.
A hundred years later, the city had experienced substantial demographic expansion, with the population soaring to approximately 3,5 million. Meanwhile, although the number of inhabitants in Manhattan rose considerably to roughly 1.85 million, its share of the city’s total decreased to 54%, whereas a surge was seen in the combined population of the four remaining districts.
By 2000, New York’s residents had reached over 8 million. However, Manhattan underwent a slight decline in population to around 1.54 million, representing just 19% of the total. By contrast, the aggregated inhabitants of the other districts rocketed to over 6.4 million, accounting for 81%.
In summary, over the two millenia, there has been a significant shift in population distribution within the city.