Now that the raw Census data has been delivered to Arkansas, among other states, what do we know about ourselves?
The population of Arkansas has grown overall, but it is a lopsided growth that elevated the state total to 3,011,524, up just 95,606 residents in the last decade.
That growth happened largely in just two counties, Benton and Washington in the state's northwest corner.
The two counties accounted for a boost of 105,800 people, with Benton County growing the most but with Fayetteville in Washington County becoming the state's second-largest city.
Pulaski County and Little Rock remain the largest of Arkansas counties and cities, and Jonesboro in Craighead County in northeast Arkansas showed some substantial growth.
But Arkansas' mostly rural population took an overall hit, with counties and cities in the state's agriculturally rich Delta and elsewhere losing population to urban areas.
It is a trend that has been repeated in other states, too. It is worrisome for those parts of the state seeing their populations shrink.
Think about what these declining population numbers say about the availability of a work force, the ability of a tax base to support education and public services.
Public and private investment in those communities will be more difficult to come by in the coming decade.
State and local officials tried, as the Census was being conducted, to make residents understand what was at risk with an undercount. Some constituencies responded but not all did, even knowing that federal and state appropriations are often population based.
The places that registered real growth will get funding to help address their increased needs. Those places with diminishing numbers will get less funding.
That's just the reality of each new Census' impact on communities all over the country.
Its other major impact is on representation in the Congress and in state legislatures. The population data will be massaged over and over to break congressional and legislative districts within each state into roughly equal populations.
In Arkansas, the redistricting work falls either to the Legislature, which will draw the four congressional district boundaries, or to the state Board of Apportionment, which will divide the state into 35 state Senate districts and 100 state House districts.
The work is currently delayed as the Arkansas Geographic Information Systems Office works with its software provider to process the raw Census data. The data must be processed for the Board of Apportionment and Legislature to begin their respective tasks.
The finished format will be user-friendly, allowing the information to be searched and analyzed.
None of it will immediately be available to the public.
The Board of Apportionment is made up of the governor, secretary of state and attorney general, each of whom has surrogates to do the day-to-day work of the board. The officials will make the final decisions, however.
Betty Dickey, a former Arkansas chief justice, is coordinator for the board and is in the midst of conducting hearings around the state as a preliminary part of the board's work.
One of those hearings, conducted at Phillips County Community College in Helena-West Helena after the raw Census data was out, took on added weight as participants realized they could lose representation when legislative districts are drawn.
Based on 2019 estimates, Phillips County had lost more than 4,000 people over the last decade. The raw data released last week suggest the county population dropped even more, from 21,757 in 2010 to 16,568 in 2020 (23.8 percent).
Officials there worried there had been a terrible undercount and were looking for remedies, but the hard truth is that these are the numbers that will guide reapportionment.
Other parts of the state, where population has drained away over the past decade, will be dealing with the same sorts of questions when the Board of Apportionment gets around to each.
The challenge in the places where population has gone up is a little different. Benton and Washington counties, for example, will likely gain representation. The resulting House and Senate districts will be smaller geographically, but there will be more of them representing different parts of the counties.
Not until those user-friendly maps are accessible will the real fights over redistricting begins.
But they are coming and, because of their late delivery this year, the time to resolve disputes will be short.