The 1790 United States census recorded a population of 3,929,214 people.
It was the first census conducted under the new Constitution. Census Day was August 2, 1790, and the count covered the population of the United States as defined by the law of the time. Congress assigned the work to U.S. marshals, who visited households and compiled schedules for their districts.
The census counted free people, enslaved people, and other categories separately according to the era’s legal classifications. It did not use modern definitions or methods, so its categories cannot be directly compared with those in later censuses. The results were published in 1791 in a report of 56 pages.
Virginia was the most populous state in the first census, with 747,610 people, while Delaware was the least populous, with 59,094. President George Washington and Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson both suspected that the total was an undercount. Difficult travel, scattered settlements, limited technology, and people declining to participate may all have affected the result.