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1830 — 2020
The whole table: Allen County enters the census in 1830, six years after its organization; the town of Fort Wayne was not separately returned until 1850, the first census after its incorporation as a city in 1840, so the city series opens then. The county counts the city within it, and the share column shows the long contest between the two: the city was a quarter of the county in 1850, more than three-quarters of it by 1930, barely more than half by 1990 as the unincorporated townships boomed, and about two-thirds in 2020 after the annexation decades. Percentage changes are computed from the counts as printed.
| Census | City of Fort Wayne | City change | City share of county | Allen County | County change |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1830 | — | — | — | 996 | — |
| 1840 | — | — | — | 5,942 | +496.6% |
| 1850 | 4,282 | — | 25.3% | 16,919 | +184.7% |
| 1860 | 10,388 | +142.6% | 35.4% | 29,328 | +73.3% |
| 1870 | 17,718 | +70.6% | 40.7% | 43,494 | +48.3% |
| 1880 | 26,880 | +51.7% | 49.1% | 54,763 | +25.9% |
| 1890 | 35,393 | +31.7% | 53.1% | 66,689 | +21.8% |
| 1900 | 45,115 | +27.5% | 58.4% | 77,270 | +15.9% |
| 1910 | 63,933 | +41.7% | 68.5% | 93,386 | +20.9% |
| 1920 | 86,549 | +35.4% | 75.7% | 114,303 | +22.4% |
| 1930 | 114,946 | +32.8% | 78.3% | 146,743 | +28.4% |
| 1940 | 118,410 | +3.0% | 76.4% | 155,084 | +5.7% |
| 1950 | 133,607 | +12.8% | 72.7% | 183,722 | +18.5% |
| 1960 | 161,776 | +21.1% | 69.7% | 232,196 | +26.4% |
| 1970 | 178,269 | +10.2% | 63.6% | 280,455 | +20.8% |
| 1980 | 172,196 | −3.4% | 58.5% | 294,335 | +4.9% |
| 1990 | 173,072 | +0.5% | 57.5% | 300,836 | +2.2% |
| 2000 | 205,727 | +18.9% | 62.0% | 331,849 | +10.3% |
| 2010 | 253,691 | +23.3% | 71.4% | 355,329 | +7.1% |
| 2020 | 263,886 | +4.0% | 68.5% | 385,410 | +8.5% |
Three readings of the table are worth stating before the eras are narrated. First, the county has grown at every census for nineteen consecutive censuses — there is no down decade anywhere in its record. Second, the city has shrunk exactly once, the 3.4 percent decline of the 1970s recorded in 1980, and was essentially flat across the following decade; every other city decade is a gain, and the two largest percentage gains of the modern era, 2000 and 2010, are the two in which the boundary moved most. Third, the two series part company after 1950: the county added 201,688 people between 1950 and 2020 while the city, inside its 1950 borders, was losing population to its own suburbs — the gap between the series in those decades is the suburban story told in the Corridors and Neighborhoods sections, and the city's recovery in the table after 1990 is in large part the boundary catching up with the fact.
Sources:
- U.S. Census Bureau — the decennial censuses, 1830–2020. County figures 1830–1990 as compiled in the Census Bureau's Population of States and Counties of the United States: 1790–1990; 2000, 2010 and 2020 from the decennial censuses of those years (Allen County 2020: 385,410; the same figure is carried in Libraries).
- U.S. Census Bureau — city figures from the decennial censuses as compiled in the Census Bureau's incorporated-place series; the 2020 city count of 263,886 agrees with Fort Wayne Today and Government.
- U.S. Census Bureau, county boundary history for Allen County (via the county's population-history record) — "no significant boundary changes after 1840."
- U.S. Census Bureau — land area of the city: 79 square miles (2000 census, State and County QuickFacts) and 110.6 square miles of land (2020 census gazetteer figures).
- B. J. Griswold and Charles A. Phelps, Handbook and Guide to Fort Wayne, Indiana, for 1913–1914 (1913) — the city's own period printing of the census series; its 1850 city figure is misprinted 4,882 for the census's 4,282.