Measures of central tendency and dispersion are the mainstay of statistical description. Their spatial analogues can be used to describe geographic distributions, and here they are employed to describe the historical path of the large-scale spatial distribution of the US population. The azimuthal equidistant projection and a three-dimensional coordinate approach are used to describe centrality, and Bachi's standard distance, and the standard deviational ellipse are used to describe dispersion. Other measures are used to describe demographic features such as differences in population density, and the degree to which the population distribution has become bicoastal. Decennial US Census data for the period 1790–2010 is combined with novel use of several measures. The analysis reveals that both the dispersion of the population and the growth of coastal populations has slowed dramatically during the last few decades. In addition to implications for changes in the demand for services such as housing and health care, the results suggest that the geographic distribution of the US population is reaching, at least temporarily, a mature equilibrium characterized by slower changes.

集中趋势和分散的度量是统计描述的主要内容。它们的空间类比可以用来描述地理分布，这里用来描述美国人口大规模空间分布的历史路径。用方位等距投影和三维坐标法描述中心性，用巴奇标准距离和标准差椭圆描述色散。其他措施用于描述人口特征，例如人口密度的差异，以及人口分布已成为沿海地区的程度。1790 年至 2010 年期间的十年一次的美国人口普查数据结合了多种衡量指标的新用途。分析表明，人口的分散和沿海人口的增长在过去几十年中都显着放缓。除了对住房和医疗保健等服务需求变化的影响外，结果表明，美国人口的地理分布至少暂时达到了一个成熟的平衡，其特征是变化较慢。