The data and presentation taken literally are not misleading I suppose -- US population centroid. It is a graph of manifest destiny, like another comment said

The data and presentation taken literally are not misleading I suppose -- US population centroid. It is a graph of manifest destiny, like another comment said - the spread of the US population and not talking about how it spread or what receded to make way. You shouldn't tell yourself this stuff about there not being many other people there, and how even if you bothered to add them in it wouldn't change. It would - it would change quite a bit. This is not a median centroid. I see the 'area enumerated' indicator. I see how it includes the west coast as of 1850. We could go find some population estimates but there isn't good agreement before certain dates. I'd like to see this kind of map, but with a more complete data set about people. This is just a political map and you could make it look a lot of ways with political choices...