-26- Population The number of people in various milk marketing areas on April 1, 1960 varied from 598,000 in Northwest Florida to 1,660,000 in South- east Florida. The population of each area was progressively larger the farther south the marketing area was located in the state. The proportion of the total population in the state in each area varied from 12.1 percent for Northwest to 33.5 for Southeast Florida. Trend in total population, 1930-1960.--Florida is unique in rate of change in total population in at least one respect. For two consecutive decades, 1940 to 1950 and 1950 to 1960, the rate of increase in each period was higher than the rate for the 10 previous years. This has not occurred recently in any other heavily populated state in the United States.2/. Recent high rates of growth in population have not been distributed uniformly among milk marketing areas. From 1950 to 1960, rates of growth in Central Florida, Tampa Bay and Southeast Florida exceeded the over-all growth rate. TABLE 14.--Total Population, by Milk Marketing Areas, Florida, April 1, 1960 : Total Population Milk Marketing Area : Iumber Percent of : Total Northwest 598,336 12.1 Northeast 710,282 14.4 Central 904,111 18.3 Tampa Day 1,079,030 21.7 Southeast 1,659,801 33.5 Florida 4,951,560 100.0 Source: U. S. Bureau of the Cenus, U. S. Census of Population: 1960, Ilumber of Inhabitants, Florida (Washington, D. C.: U. S. Govern- ment Printing Office, 1961) Final Report PC(1)-11A. Rates of population increase from 1930 to 1940 were nearly alike in each milk marketing area except Southeast Florida (Table 15). Since 1940, lNorthwest and Dortheast Florida had nearly the same rate of increase in population. However, these areas lagged behind the remainder of the State by a considerable amount, especially from 1950 to 1960. 32/Arizona and Nevada also had two decades (1940-1960) of population growth at increasing rates, but with much smaller population totals than Florida.