According to the first U.S. census in 1790, the nation’s recorded population was 3,929,214.
The census was conducted under the Constitution’s requirement that population be counted for congressional apportionment and direct taxation. Marshals and their assistants gathered information in the fifteen states then belonging to the Union, along with districts and territories under federal jurisdiction.
The count included free people and enslaved people under rules established by the Constitution. For apportionment, enslaved people were counted as three-fifths of a person, while Native Americans who were not taxed were excluded from the official apportionment count. The published total therefore reflects the legal categories of its era, not a modern demographic method.
Virginia had the largest state population in the census, followed by Pennsylvania and North Carolina. The census became the first in a continuing decennial series that remains central to representation in the House of Representatives.