What is the difference between apportionment and redistricting?

Answer 1

Apportionment occurs from the federal government to the states and redistricting is done in the states.

Apportionment means that the 435 seats of the House of Representatives are apportioned among the states. Each state has at least one seat, That's 50 of the 435 seats. Then the other 385 seats are apportioned to the states based on their respective populations. The system of apportionment is based on an alegrebraic formula described in a law passed by Congress circa 1940. Every 10 years after a census is conducted, the Clerk of the House reports to each state capitol how many seats in the House that state will have.

Once every state knows how many seats it will have, those with 2 or more seats must then divide up the state into districts. Since California, for example, was apportioned 53 seats, California needed to have 53 districts. In each respective state, some entity in the state government draws the districts. Usually the state legislature does it, but some states have adopted independent commissions to draw the districts.

Answer 2

Apportionment is when the U.S. House of Representatives decides how many Representatives will represent each state based on the state's poulation. Redistricting is when the House of Representatives will give more representatives to one particular district in a certain state, for example if a certain part of a state has a bigger population than the rest of the state, the House of Representatives will assign more representatives to the part of the state that has the bigger population than the state as a whole.