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1830 — 2020
The whole table: St. Joseph County was organized in 1830 and counted that year; South Bend was not separately returned until 1850, so the city series opens then. (The "128" sometimes printed as the town's 1831 population was not a count at all — it was the number of names on the 1830 petition for the county seat, as the Story of South Bend section of this history establishes — and no territorial census ever counted this ground before 1830.) The county counts the city within it, and the share column is the long story in one line: the city was 15 percent of its county in 1850, more than two-thirds of it by 1920, barely half by 1970, and under 38 percent in 2020. Percentage changes are computed from the counts as printed.
| Census | City of South Bend | City change | City share of county | St. Joseph County | County change |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1830 | — | — | — | 287 | — |
| 1840 | — | — | — | 6,425 | +2,138.7% |
| 1850 | 1,652 | — | 15.1% | 10,954 | +70.5% |
| 1860 | 3,832 | +132.0% | 20.8% | 18,455 | +68.5% |
| 1870 | 7,206 | +88.0% | 28.5% | 25,322 | +37.2% |
| 1880 | 13,280 | +84.3% | 40.0% | 33,178 | +31.0% |
| 1890 | 21,819 | +64.3% | 51.4% | 42,457 | +28.0% |
| 1900 | 35,999 | +65.0% | 61.1% | 58,881 | +38.7% |
| 1910 | 53,684 | +49.1% | 63.7% | 84,312 | +43.2% |
| 1920 | 70,983 | +32.2% | 68.7% | 103,304 | +22.5% |
| 1930 | 104,193 | +46.8% | 65.1% | 160,033 | +54.9% |
| 1940 | 101,268 | −2.8% | 62.6% | 161,823 | +1.1% |
| 1950 | 115,911 | +14.5% | 56.5% | 205,058 | +26.7% |
| 1960 | 132,445 | +14.3% | 55.5% | 238,614 | +16.4% |
| 1970 | 125,580 | −5.2% | 51.2% | 245,045 | +2.7% |
| 1980 | 109,727 | −12.6% | 45.4% | 241,617 | −1.4% |
| 1990 | 105,511 | −3.8% | 42.7% | 247,052 | +2.2% |
| 2000 | 107,789 | +2.2% | 40.6% | 265,559 | +7.5% |
| 2010 | 101,168 | −6.1% | 37.9% | 266,931 | +0.5% |
| 2020 | 103,453 | +2.3% | 37.9% | 272,912 | +2.2% |
Three readings of the table are worth stating before the eras are narrated. First, the county has shrunk exactly once in nineteen censuses — the 1.4 percent decline of the 1970s recorded in 1980 — and stands at its record in 2020; the city has shrunk in five of the last seven censuses and stands 21.9 percent below its 1960 peak. Second, the city's two gains of the modern era, 2000 and 2020, are the first since 1960, and both are small; the stabilization they mark is real but it is stabilization near 103,000, not recovery toward 132,000. Third, the balance of the county — the county outside the city line — passed the city itself between the 1970 and 1980 censuses: 119,465 against the city's 125,580 in 1970, then 131,890 against 109,727 in 1980, and 169,459 against 103,453 in 2020. Most of St. Joseph County has lived outside South Bend for forty years. The Census Bureau's current estimates continue both lines by a step: the city at 103,201 and the county at 272,861 on 1 July 2025 (Vintage 2025) — estimates, printed here as estimates, not counts; the same program's Vintage 2024 estimate put the city at 103,713 on 1 July 2024.
One figure in the table is carried as a conflict, openly. The 1970 city count is printed here as 125,580, the figure in the 1970 census's own Indiana volume, whose table of incorporated places gives the change from 1960 as −6,865, or −5.2 percent, and in the Census Bureau's historical race series. A figure of 125,850 circulates in later compilations of the decennial series — the Story of South Bend section of this history prints it, and the difference is a transposition of two digits somewhere in the copying — and 125,850 would make the decade's change −5.0 percent and the city's 1970 share of the county 51.4 rather than 51.2 percent.
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 (Forstall); 2000, 2010 and 2020 from the decennial censuses of those years (St. Joseph County 2020: 272,912).
- U.S. Census Bureau — city figures from the decennial censuses; the 1970 figure of 125,580 from Census of Population: 1970, Vol. I, Part 16 (Indiana), Table 7, and from Gibson and Jung, Working Paper No. 76 (below); the 125,850 variant as carried in later compilations of the series and in this history's spine.
- U.S. Census Bureau, Population Estimates Program — city estimate of 103,201 and county estimate of 272,861 for 1 July 2025 (Vintage 2025), and the city's 103,713 for 1 July 2024 (Vintage 2024), as published in Census QuickFacts; estimates, not census counts.
- U.S. Census Bureau — land area of the city: 41.46 square miles of land (2010 census) and 41.98 (2020 census), Census QuickFacts; county boundary history (no significant change after 1850) via the Census Bureau's county population-history record.