HARTVILLE, Mo. — Some people might describe Hartville, Missouri, as being in the middle of nowhere, but the U.S. Census Bureau on Tuesday announced that it's the closest town to the middle of the nation.
The hamlet of about 600 people in the Missouri Ozarks is located about 15 miles (24 kilometers) from the center of the U.S. population distribution, according to the Census Bureau.
The nation's population center is calculated every 10 years after the once-a-decade census shows where people are living. The heart of America has been located in Missouri since 1980.
To calculate the center of the U.S., the Census Bureau figures out which spot would be "the balance point" if the 50 states were located on an imaginary, flat surface with weights of identical size — each representing the location of one person — placed on it.
The U.S. population center, previously located in Plato, Missouri, in the neighboring county, moved only 11.8 miles (19 kilometers) from 2010 to 2020. It is the smallest distance shift in 100 years and the second-smallest in U.S. history.
Plato, located south of Fort Leonard Wood in the Missouri Ozarks, had a population of 82 people last year, about a quarter fewer residents than a decade ago when then-Census Bureau director Robert Groves paid the village a visit to help celebrate its status.
But don't expect to find T-shirts or coffee mugs celebrating that designation in any local stores, or any regrets as Plato loses this claim to fame. Most folks in Texas County, which is home to Plato, have no idea they're at the center of the U.S., said Scott Long, the presiding commissioner of Texas County, where beef cattle outnumber people.
“I don't think it has changed the day to day lives of the people of this county, but I don't want to say that in way that means we don't care," Long said. “It's one of those things most people don't even know."
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Associated Press writer Mike Schneider in Orlando, Florida, contributed to this report.