I counted the number of people marching at the start of the protest and at the end of it.

I stood and counted rows as people went past, estimated the number per row, and tallied this up.

At the start, there were approximately 1300 people from start to end.

At the end on Michigan, there were approximately 2200 in the march proper plus several hundred following along side on the wide michigan ave (not seeming to be press--just the march sort of fanning out a bit) and some more waiting in plaza. Call it 2500. Certainly 2200-2500.

So the march grew as it went along.

Note: There are multiple reports of police pushing people away who wanted to join the protest. I experienced this myself at the beginning of the protest when one excited officer very forcibly pushed me away from the march and saw this done to others. Others reported seeing such.

Organizers cite the 2200 number. There were a couple of organizer type folks standing by me as I counted. They asked what I thought: 2200. So that number might be origin of the organizer estimate. Just after that estimate, I revised that up a little when I took note of the folks walking along the march and in the plaza before the march arrived.

These are accurate counts.

On top of this there were 300 or so of the press outside of the march and of course... and of course the police that the press are focused on.

See center column of chicago.indymedia.org for links to more coverage and discussion of issues.