Population of the Northern District

Yesterday, someone asked how many people lived in the Northern District of Middlesex County. I didn’t know, but I promised to find out. First, the Northern District is made up of ten communities with the city of Lowell in the geographic center of the district and the towns of Dracut, Tewksbury, Wilmington, Billerica, Carlisle, Chelmsford, Westford, Dunstable and Tyngsborough (named clockwise, starting at twelve o’clock). According to the 2004 census estimates (which are almost identical to the actual 2000 census results, 296,947 people live in the Northern District. Here are the 2004 population figures for each town along with the percentage of the Northern District’s population represented by that town’s residents:

-Billerica – 39351 inhabitants (13% of the district’s population)
-Carlisle – 4830 inhabitants (2%)
-Chelmsford – 33769 (11%)
-Dracut – 28681 (10%)
-Dunstable – 3101 (1%)
-Lowell – 103655 (35%)
-Tewksbury – 29130 (10%)
-Tyngsborough – 11387 (4%)
-Westford – 21475 (7%)
-Wilmington – 21568 (7%)

Besides these most recent figures, I have also located US Census statistics for 1990, 1980, 1970 and 1960. Next week I’ll write some more about how the population of these communities has changed during the past 45 years.