Want to live in the most populated city in the United States?  You can join upwards of eight million other people who call the Big Apple home.

New York City was again named most populous, but not everyone agrees with the numbers produced by the U.S. Census Bureau,

The city that never sleeps now has 8,175,133 residents, a 2.1% increase over the year 2000, and more than twice runner-up Los Angeles’ 3.8 million headcount.  … “[T]he Census Bureau determined that the population of Queens increased by only 1,300 people. Think about that,” Bloomberg said in a speech at city hall on Thursday. “1,300 people over ten years … it doesn’t make any sense.”

Census numbers, of course, equate to more federal funding to states and municipalities.  Many towns conduct special censuses when they want to challenge official numbers – hoping for greater population figures.

Photo by Marie P. via flickr creative commons.