Where people lived in Vermilion and Cameron parishes in the 2020 census

Vermilion and Cameron parishes are almost the same size on a land map. They were not close in population. The 2020 census counted 57,359 residents in Vermilion Parish and 5,617 in Cameron Parish. Spread across their respective land areas, those counts work out to 48.9 and 4.4 people per square mile. But neither average tells a reader where people actually lived.

The Census Bureau's 2020 tract table gives a sharper view. Cameron Parish's tract 9701.01 contained 3,132 residents, about 56 percent of the parish's population, on 193 square miles of land—15 percent of Cameron's 1,284.6 land square miles. Its other three populated tracts together held 2,485 residents across roughly 1,092 square miles. On the official map, 9701.01 runs across Cameron's northeastern side, east of Calcasieu Lake; Hackberry sits in a separate western tract. These are broad census areas, not neighborhoods; the Cameron tract map shows their boundaries.

Vermilion's contrast runs the other way. Its largest tract by land area, 9511, covered about 553 square miles—47 percent of the parish's land—but counted 1,386 people, just 2.4 percent of the parish's population in the same 2020 tract table. The remaining 15 populated tracts held 55,973 people on the other roughly 621 square miles. On the official map, 9511 occupies a broad southern part of Vermilion, south of Abbeville and Kaplan; it is not a single community. The Vermilion tract map is a better guide to that division than the parishwide density alone.

The remaining populated tracts account for 44.2 percent of Cameron's residents and 97.6 percent of Vermilion's. Those comparisons use the 2020 tract POP100 and AREALAND fields, with land square miles rounded. Each parish also has a tract 9900 with blank resident-population and land-area fields; it is excluded from the grouped tract counts.

The pattern is also visible at the place level, though places and tracts overlap and must not be added together. The 2020 incorporated-place table lists 11,186 people in Abbeville and 4,352 in Kaplan. Those two cities alone held about 27 percent of Vermilion's 2020 population. Maurice, Erath and Gueydan add another 5,311 residents. Together, those five municipalities had 20,849 people, about 36 percent of the parish's count. The Census place-by-parish list confirms that these five municipalities are wholly in Vermilion. This sum excludes Delcambre: the same list shows that the town straddles the Vermilion–Iberia parish line, so its whole-place count is not a Vermilion-only number.

Cameron's 2020 census-designated-place table reports 926 residents in Hackberry and 315 in Cameron. These named statistical places do not cover everyone in the parish. They also are not a count of nearby communities without their own census-designated-place boundary. Pecan Island likewise has no separate place row in that Census table; tract 9511 is not a Pecan Island population figure.

This is a dated baseline, not a claim about where everyone lives today. The Census counts people at their usual residence, not everyone present for work, recreation or a second-home stay. Census QuickFacts now lists July 2025 parishwide estimates of 57,671 for Vermilion and 4,718 for Cameron. Those estimates are a different product and year; they do not supply a new town-by-town or tract-by-tract distribution. Applying 2020 shares to them would invent a 2025 map.

Why does the distribution matter for a proposed road, plant or launch-related project? A low parish average does not show how many homes sit beside a particular route, where workers might live, how far water or emergency services must reach, or what land and habitat a project might alter. A large tract can contain both settlements and extensive land without usual residents. The census alone cannot price a utility extension, forecast traffic, identify whose housing costs might rise, or measure environmental effects. Those questions require a project footprint, transportation and utility plans, workforce-residence evidence, permit records and the voices of people near the site. The 2020 map tells reporters and residents where to start asking—not what any 2026 proposal has already done.