U.S. population soon to exceed 300mln

Rising at a rate of one person every 11 seconds, the U.S. population will officially surpass 300 million in the next week or so, The Washington Post reported on Thursday.

The United States is the world's third most populous country, following China and India.

From the Declaration of Independence in 1776, it took the country 139 years to get to 100 million in 1915, then 52 more years to reach 200 million and 39 more years to hit 300 million. The 400 million mark, according to census projections, will be reached in around 37 years.

The 300-million milestone, which emerges from a formula that crunches births and immigrants against deaths, is an educated guess by the Census Bureau, not an actual people count, according to the report.

Immigrants, legal and illegal, account for around 40 percent of the population growth. Immigration is also an important reason that the "natural increase" in the population, excess of births over deaths, is significantly higher in the United States than in Europe and Japan.

Hispanics from Latin America, by far the largest share of recent immigrants, were driving the natural increase in the country, said the report.

Source: Xinhua