About Understand Idaho
Start with the question. Follow the evidence. Understand Idaho.
Understand Idaho gathers the public figures that describe this state, from population and wages to water, land, schools and crime, and puts them in one place with the source, the unit and the period behind each one, compared over time, across counties and against other states.
Why data matters
Most of what is said about Idaho is said without a number, or with a number that lost its source on the way. The figures exist. Federal and state agencies publish them every year, but they sit in hundreds of tables on dozens of sites, in different units and different vintages, and almost no one reads them side by side. A claim that cannot be checked is an opinion with a decimal point.
This site does the reading. Every figure here is fetched from the publisher by a script, stored as fetched, and shown as published, with a link back. Where two agencies disagree, both figures appear with the reason. Where a number is missing, it stays missing. The site states what the data shows and stops there, so a reader can start with a question and follow the evidence to an answer they can defend.
Why Idaho
Idaho is a place where the numbers move. Its population, its land, its water and its economy each stand apart from the other states in ways the data makes plain, and each has a page here.
- Idaho population growth: 1.4% in 2025, 2nd among the states.
- Federal land in Idaho: 61.9% in 2018, 3rd among the states.
- Idaho aquaculture water use: 3,871,548 acre-feet in 2023, 1st of 47 states.
- Idaho irrigated land: 3,167,499 acres in 2022, 5th among the states.
- Idaho hydropower generation: 9,150 GWh in 2024.
Who publishes this
Understand Idaho is published by Michael Cooper, a fifth-generation Idahoan. His family homesteaded near Emmett and he was born in Twin Falls. He founded Tributary AI Systems, an AI automation company, and builds AGLedger. He built this site because he wanted the answers himself and could not find them in one place.
How the site works
Every figure is read from a dataset that is itself fetched by a script from the publisher, stored as fetched, and normalized into one table of observations. No page carries a typed-in statistic. When a publisher revises a figure, the next fetch moves every page, chart and comparison that uses it.
Each observation records what it measures, the geography, the time period, the value in the publisher’s own precision, and whether the publisher calls it preliminary, an estimate, revised or final. Each dataset records the organization, the dataset or report name, the canonical page, the exact file or API call used, the publisher’s release date, the date we retrieved it, and the caveats a reader needs beside the numbers. The data catalog lists every one.
Source policy
- Primary government and public datasets over secondary reporting. Secondary sources may suggest a question; the figure that answers it is traced to the publisher.
- The original source URL, dataset name, publication date and data period are preserved with every figure.
- Figures are shown at the precision the source publishes. Nothing is rounded to look tidier or extended to look more exact.
- Missing values are left missing. Nothing is interpolated, carried forward or estimated by us.
- Where two sources publish different figures for the same thing, both are shown with the reason for the difference where it is known.
- A small number of measures are computed by us from published ones, such as a growth rate from two population estimates or a home value to income ratio. Each is labelled as computed and its inputs are cited.
- Statements on the site describe what the data shows. They do not say what a reader should conclude from it.
Corrections
If a figure does not match its source, or a source has published a revision we have not picked up, write to info@understandidaho.com with the page and the figure. A confirmed error is fixed at the data, so every page that used it changes together.
Reuse
The underlying records are Idaho and United States public record. Text and charts on the site may be quoted with a link to the page. Cite the original publisher for the figures; cite Understand Idaho for the compilation.
This site is not an official publication of, and is not endorsed by, any agency named on it. Nothing here is legal, financial or medical advice.