Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 12.djvu/394

386 NOTES 307,060, or 45.6 per cent of the total population of the State; while 365,705 people, or 54.4 per cent, lived in rural territory on the farms or in villages, towns and cities of less than 2,500. In 1900 only 32.2 per cent of the Oregon population was urban, while 67.8 per cent lived in rural territory. There had thus during the decade from 1900 to 1910 been a large increase in the proportion of urban population. The urban population of the nation at large was 46.3 per cent. During the last decade the urban population of Oregon grew 115 per cent; the rural population during the same period increased but 35.1 per cent. In other words, the population of the urban areas in Oregon increased more than three times as fast as did that of the rural territory. The City of Portland grew somewhat more than twice as rapidly as did the State as a whole. The average density of the population in Oregon was seven persons to the square mile. The average number for the nation as a whole was 30.9. Three counties, Harney, Lake and Malheur, each averaged less than one person per square mile. The rural population in Union County, and the population as a whole of Grant County, decreased during the decade. Maps indicating density of population show a great south- eastern block of the area of the State that was virtually empty. This wilderness region comprised nearly half of the extent of the State. A tier, in some places two, of counties along the northern and western sides of the State were a little more fully occupied. So far that section of the State which first drew the pioneer across the continental wilderness of the forties and fifties still leads in inhabitants. But the conquering forces in irrigation and railway building are at work. The maps of the returns of the next national count promise to be different at least the vast vacant area will have vanished.