The term demographics are essentially a short form of what we can call 'population characteristics'. Demographics include age, per capita income, mobility (in terms of travel time to work or number of vehicles available), educational and academic level of the people, value of ownership (that includes properties and assets like homes, apartments, garden and such others), status of employment and even the location of the region.

Demographics are used in market research, opinion research, political research and assessment of the changing trend of consumer behavior and its patterns. But demographics is best utilized by marketing executives, as the various characteristics of the people reflect their tastes and give an idea of the probability of the sales returns of a launched product in that area.

By census demographics, we mean the collection of data from all possible sources in a population. It can also mean the study of an entire population, such as a government census or studies of production and distribution. However, the fact still remains that the source of all the prime information for demographic information is the US Census. There are a number of online resources that can provide someone with the best census demographics, thereby facilitating a comprehensive comparison over multiple datasets from different time periods. This census data is being offered as a packaged product (also available online) that covers data from multiple time periods.

According to the most recent census demographic reports, the official population of the United States is 281,421,906 (compared to 248,709,873 in 1990). In addition to this report, the Bureau also reapportioned the 435 Congressional seats of the House of Representatives. This was one of the results of census demographics. Apart from this, detailed information about population densities in particular regions and other related reports also constitute a major part of the census demographics.