The fastest-growing and shrinking counties in the US

• Newly published estimates for counties showed how population growth changed from 2022 to 2023.
• Among counties with at least 20,000 people, Kaufman County in Texas was growing the quickest.

Texas had several counties that saw the quickest population growth between 2022 and 2023.

According to a press release from the Census Bureau, six of the 10 fastest-growing counties among places with at least 20,000 people in 2022 and 2023 were in that state. That result is based on the percent increases in population from July 1, 2022, to July 1, 2023.

The recently published population data involves the 3,144 counties and county-equivalents in the US and shows the population for these areas as of July 1, 2023. There was a rise in the number of counties that saw growth from July 1, 2022, to July 1, 2023, compared to the number of counties that had population increases the previous year. The press release noted this surged from 52% of counties to around 60%.

All three counties in Delaware saw their populations rise from where they stood on July 1, 2022. Florida, Idaho, and Tennessee all had over 90% of their counties seeing an increase. Connecticut had eight out of nine counties with growth, 14 out of 16 in Maine, and 21 out of the 24 in Maryland.

Illinois only had 14 of 102 counties see population increases. In West Virginia, eight of 55 counties saw population growth.

You can hover over the areas on the map below to see what population growth and declines looked like across the country.

"Areas which experienced high levels of domestic out-migration during the pandemic, such as in the Midwest and Northeast, are now seeing more counties with population growth," Lauren Bowers, chief of the Census Bureau's Population Estimates Branch, said per the press release. "Meanwhile, county population growth is slowing down out west, such as in Arizona and Idaho."

While several of Arizona's counties did see a slowdown, 13 of the 15 counties in Arizona saw some kind of population growth from 2022 to 2023. Pinal County saw the fastest growth among the counties in this state, rising 4.1% to 484,239, which is actually a higher percent increase than the change for July 1, 2021, to July 1, 2022.

While none of the 10 fastest-growing large counties were in California, three California counties had the largest percent declines among big counties. Natural change, which is based on births and deaths, and net domestic migration contributed to Lassen County in California being the county with the biggest percent decline among the big counties in the country.