(Getty Images)

Also undercounted were about 5 percent of American Indians living on reservations and nearly 2 percent of minorities who marked themselves as “some other race.”

“While the overall coverage of the census was exemplary, the traditional hard-to-count groups, like renters, were counted less well,” Census Bureau director Robert Groves said. “Because ethnic and racial minorities disproportionately live in hard-to-count circumstances, they too were undercounted relative to the majority population.”

“Our belief is that without our outreach, our numbers would have been much, much worse,” he added.

The South, led by the District of Columbia, Texas, Georgia, Virginia, North Carolina and Florida, was more likely to have people who were missed. The Midwest and Northeast as a whole posted small over-counts.

The findings come after more than 100 cities including New York challenged the official 2010 results as too low.

The Census Bureau, which recently rejected New York’s request to revise the city’s count, says the latest analysis will not affect the government’s official U.S. population tally of 308.7 million but it will be used to improve the 2020 count. Nor will the analysis affect how the federal government distributes more than $400 billion to states for roads, schools and social programs.