MAIN Home Life Holidays Thanksgiving

• Where can you find the most turkeys in the U.S.?
  (Washington, D. C. is NOT the right answer. These are different kinds of turkeys!)
  

• Where do most of the cranberries in your sauce come from ... (and it's not Massachusetts)?
  

• And how many people can claim Turkey, U.S.A. as their hometown?

Just up ahead, check out fun facts about Thanksgiving by the numbers :

$1.39 is the average cost per pound in of a frozen whole turkey in the U.S. based on 2019 data. That's a price drop from $1.41 per pound during the previous year.

3 is the number of places nationwide named after the holiday's tasty gobbler. Turkey, Texas, is the most populous, with 496 residents; followed by Turkey Creek, La. (357); and Turkey, N.C. (267). There also are 16 townships around the country named "Turkey," three of them in Kansas.

7 is the number of places and townships in the U.S. of A. that are named "Cranberry" or some variation of the name (e.g., Cranbury, New Jersey)

33 is the number of places in the United States named Plymouth, as in Plymouth Rock, legendary location of the first Thanksgiving. Plymouth, Minnesota is the most populous, with 75,907 residents in 2015. Plymouth, Massachusetts had 51,701.

16.4 pounds is the amount of turkey consumed by the typical American each year -- no doubt a good bit of it at Thanksgiving time.

With 243 million turkeys raised in the US each year, that's almost a turkey in every pot.

243 million is the total estimated number of of turkeys raised in the United States in 2016, up a couple of percentage points from 2015. And that's a lot of turkey!

44 million is the estimated of the number of turkeys Minnesota raised in 2016. The Gopher State is tops in turkey production followed by North Carolina (33.0 million), Arkansas (26.0 million), Indiana (20.0 million), Missouri (19.7 million) and Virginia (17.0 million).

Illinois leads U.S. pumpkin production -- followed by California, Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania and New York.

859 million pounds was the forecast for U.S. cranberry production in 2016, with Wisconsin leading all states in the production of cranberries at 521 million pounds, followed by Massachusetts (207 million). New Jersey (54 million) and Washington State (1.4 million).

457 million pounds is the record held by Illinois for total U.S. pumpkin production — followed by California, Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania and New York which produced at least 70 million pounds worth.

3.1 billion pounds is the total weight of sweet potatoes — another popular Thanksgiving side dish — produced by major sweet potato producing states in 2015. North Carolina (1.2 billion pounds) produces more sweet potatoes than any other state, followed by California, Mississippi and Louisiana.

14 million is the total number of Americans who were too daunted to prepare Thanksgiving dinner (you're not alone!) and who planned to visit a local restaurant for Thanksgiving. An additional 16 million ordered out for at least part of their Thanksgiving feast.

...with thanks to the U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Agricultural Statistics Service, The National Restaurant Association, U.S. import and export trade reports, and the U.S. Census and the Statistical Abstract of the United States.

also see in Travel -> Pumpkin Picking | Fall Foliage Tours