The number of people living in a town is given as 60 000, correct to 2 significant figures. Write down values for the smallest and largest possible number of people who could be in the town.

1. Find the lower bound for $60\,000$ correct to 2 significant figures.

$60\,000$ correct to 2 significant figures means rounded to the nearest $1000$.

Half of $1000$ is $500$, so the smallest possible number is

$60\,000-500=59\,500.$

1. Find the largest whole number that rounds to $60\,000$ correct to 2 significant figures.

$60\,000$ correct to 2 significant figures means rounded to the nearest $1000$.

The upper bound is
$60\,000+\frac{1000}{2}=60\,500.$

Since the number of people is a whole number, the largest possible number is
$60\,500-1=60\,499.$