Here’s a tidbit that may raise some ire in the White House: Saturday’s Women’s March events may have drawn more than one in 100 of all Americans, according to academics from the University of Connecticut and University of Denver.
The report, first picked up in Yahoo News, puts the low-end estimate of total marchers at 3.336,865 and the high-end at 4,633,725. The total population of the U.S. Was 324,421,240 according to the U.S. Census Population Clock as of noon on Monday.
The figures for more than 500 march sites was compiled by Jeremy Pressman, professor of political science professor at the University of Connecticut, and Erica Chenowith, professor of international relations at the University of Denver. The researchers shared a Google spreadsheet listing the cities with high and low estimates of march crowds for most of them.
For raw numbers, researchers relied on official counts by local police, other city or state officials, and the march organizers themselves at each location. For some of the smaller marches, the two researchers handcounted the tallies from photos and video, Pressman explains to Coins2Day. (Disclaimer: Pressman is also the brother of Coins2Day senior writer Aaron Pressman.)
Given the uproar this weekend about the relative number of attendees at the inauguration of President Donald Trump and the Women’s March on Washington the following day, these figures will undoubtedly draw controversy.
Since march organizers may want to maximize attendance estimates, their figures should be taken with a grain of salt, Pressman concedes. Still, the photographic and video evidence of the march crowds is compelling.
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Pressman says what struck him most was not necessarily the size of the crowds in Washington D.C. (Which had a top line estimate of 1 million people), Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, or Boston—but the fact that marches happened seemingly everywhere.
In Pocatello, Idaho, for example, the march drew an estimated 10,000. Events in St. Louis claimed 20,000 marchers compared to 15,000 for Cleveland and 10,000 for Detroit, according to the spreadsheet.
Can you see us now? ⚡️ #WomensMarch IN MO OH WY MN WI KY ND MT TX AK TN LA GA AZ WA MS AL HI KS ID IA CO MI NV OK PA https://t.co/AHLdHxRyJL
— Staci D Kramer (@sdkstl) January 22, 2017
“Obviously in terms of quantity, the big numbers come from New York, Washington, Los Angeles, Boston, and Chicago. But it seems like every state had events, in some case for tens or dozens of people,” Pressman says. “I was contacted by many people in Montana who want you to know that there was a march in Helena, and there were about 10,000 people there.”
For more on the inauguration, watch:
He also notes that some retirement communities staged their own events for people who may not have been able to travel to a larger march venue.
As noted, the spreadsheet includes estimates for about 500 U.S. Cities from Hilo, Hawaii to Amelia Island, Fla, but also for a few dozen international sites, spanning from the U.K.’s Isle of Eigg to Nairobi to Seoul.
DATE (01/23/2017 12:37 p.m): This story was updated to add the most recent march totals.