Those American towns that have the population count on the signs

[Soubriquet]

Do they update every time someone dies, is born, leaves town or arrives in town to live?

LOL.

No.

Only in vintage cartoons

They have these signs in Australia too 🙂

In huge cities they don’t change them all the time but the population is only a rough estimate anyway. It’s just to give drivers an idea of the size of town and therefore the likelihood of services such as a hospital, restaurants, hotels, large grocery stores, etc.

The closest town to us (we live on incorporated land) recently updated their sign from 47 to 46, following the death of one of the oldest residents. In towns that small people are not dying it having babies every day so the sign doesn’t need to be updated very often.

Of course not. Its just an estimate.

They do this in Canada too. I imagine they get updated periodically according to the national census?

Usually the start of a film with a sign like that signifies a horror film.

They never changed the Twin Peaks sign, it's stood at 51,201 for decades!

They upgrade them every 5years or you can apply to have them changed early if there's has been a dramatic shift in population eg after covid perhaps.