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I am on place A, somewhere in the United States of America.

  • If I go to the Southwest, my sequence starts as following:

    3880181, 967089, 299246, 212635, 194944, ...

  • If I go to the Northwest, my sequence starts as following:

    1009518, 483702, 288146, 221846, 133791, ...

  • If I go to the Northeast, my sequence starts as following:

    588349, 587272, 545089, 529354, 422495, ...

  • If I go to the Southeast, my sequence starts as following:

    629292, 198791, 142955, 122427, 117866, ...

Additional hints:

  • Hint 1:

    Each sequence consists of positive integers and is decreasing.

  • Hint 2:

    Each sequence changes over time, and it probably changes every day.

  • Hint 3:

    The last sequence has 33 elements.

Questions:

  • Where is point A?
  • What do the numbers represent?
  • How many elements does the third sequence have?
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    $\begingroup$ I suspected that the numbers were populations of cities, with A being on the intersection of four states. Unfortunately that doesn't work. $\endgroup$
    – frodoskywalker
    Feb 7, 2016 at 11:23
  • $\begingroup$ @frodoskywalker You are extremely close. Look for another word with a C. Also, keep in mind that the numbers might be a bit outdated. These numbers are form June 2007. $\endgroup$
    – wythagoras
    Feb 7, 2016 at 11:26
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    $\begingroup$ Searching "3880181 population" is an instant giveaway... $\endgroup$
    – f''
    Feb 7, 2016 at 15:49

1 Answer 1

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Not sure I deserve any credit for this answer, since I found it thanks to the massive additional hint from user f''. Anyway, here is the correct answer, I think :

Point A is

somewhere in the Four Corners region, where boundaries of four U.S. states meet: Arizona (SW, first sequence), Utah (NW, second sequence), Colorado (NE, third sequence) and New Mexico.

The numbers represent

county population, in descending order, for each of the four states.

Therefore, Sequence 1 translates to

Maricopa, Pima, Pinal, Yavapai, Mohave (or Yuma, I couldn't find 2007 source data, can't access to census.gov for some reason), ...

Sequence 2 translates to

Salt Lake, Utah, Davis, Weber, Washington, ...

Sequence 3 translates to

Denver, El Paso (which is now the most populated county, it seems), Arapahoe, Jefferson, Adams, ...

Sequence 4 translates to

Bernalillo, Doña Ama, Santa Fe, Sandoval, San Juan, ...

The third sequence has

64 elements (Colorado has 64 counties in total).

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