My state has been licensing PLS's for 123 years, whereas:
1) There are roughly 38 million people here (2012 census).
2) That is more than all of Canada.
3) They have licensed 9,150± souls total to see to the land development needs of said people.
4) Averages 74± people per year licensed.
5) Not sure how many are currently active. Pretty sure at least 75% are gone/retired.
How's your state averaging PLS/Population?
Oklahoma has around 3,750,000 folks living within its borders. Most of them were actually headed out your way but ran out of gas.
We've been licensing surveyors for 45 years. There have been approximately 1800 licenses issued. The first 800 or so were 'grandfathered'. Most, but not all, of them are inactive. My estimate is that there are probably 1000 active licensed surveyors in Oklahoma. And I believe there are less than 2 dozen licenses issued a year.
Virginia has issued licenses since the late 40's or early 50's.
Virginia has a population of 8,260,405± (2013 est. per wiki)
Virginia has probably licensed around 3000 people. The License numbers are up around 3300 now, but not every number is issued. (You are issued a number for tracking when you apply for your SIT, but some never go a head and get their LS. I was issued my number in about 2001, but didn't get licensed until 2006 so my number (2502) seems out of sequence with the other numbers around mine).
Virginia grandfathered the first 700 or so (that's a guess rather than actual information)
Virginia probably licenses about 20~30 a year.
Also not sure about how many active, but probably around 1000±.
Oklahoma
> My estimate is that there are probably 1000 active licensed surveyors in Oklahoma.
A check of the board's website shows that there are 677 currently active LS's licensed in OK.
Wikipedia lists the state's population as 3,850,568. That's 1 PLS per 5,688 people.
Oregon
There are 1052 current Oregon registrants. The population of Oregon is 3,899,353 according to Wikipedia. That's 3707 people per registrant.