Congressional districts in the United States are electoral divisions for electing members of the United States House of Representatives. There are now 435 voting seats in the House of Representatives. Each seat represents around 761,000 people.[1] There have been 435 voting seats since 1913, except for a temporary increase to 437 after the admissions of Alaska and Hawaii. The total number of state members is capped by the Reapportionment Act of 1929.[2] Also, each of the five inhabited U.S. territories and the federal district of Washington, D.C. sends a non-voting delegate to the House of Representatives.
The Bureau of the Census counts the number of people in the United States every ten years. This is called the decennial census. The numbers from the Census are used to figure out how many representavies each state gets. This is called "apportionment". The 2012 elections were the first to be based on the congressional districts which were defined based on the 2010 United States Census.[3]
Each state is in charge of the redistricting of districts within their state, and several states have one "at-large" division. Redistricting must take place if the number of members changes after a reapportionment, or may take place at any other time if demographics represented in a district has changed substantially. Districts may sometimes retain the same boundaries while changing their district numbers.
The following is a complete list of the 435 current congressional districts for the House of Representatives, and over 200 obsolete (no longer being used) districts, and the six current and one obsolete non-voting delegations.
See Non-voting delegations, below.
The oldest district in the country, it has never changed its shape or size. From 1813 to 1823, Delaware had two representatives — both chosen at-large on a general ticket from the same statewide district.
Until 1820, Maine was part of Massachusetts. After the 1810 census, Massachusetts was allocated 20 districts. Seven Massachusetts districts (then numbered 14 through 20) were credited to Maine soon after it became a state in 1820. See District of Maine.
This list includes the 435 current voting districts, along with the District of Columbia's non-voting delegation.[6]