- The Census Bureau released county
population estimates as of July, 1, 2020. - Insider looked at which counties grew and shrank the most between 2019 and 2020.
- Six of the 10 fastest-growing counties with at least 10,000 residents in 2020 are in Texas.
The Census Bureau recently released population estimates on May 4, and the new data shows which counties were growing the fastest ove the last year.
During the coronavirus pandemic, some people decided to take the opportunity to move or relocate temporarily. Insider's Taylor Borden reported that February 2020 to July 2020 data from the US Postal Service showed a large number of Americans moved out of large cities to smaller suburbs. But the new government data from the Census Bureau gives a sense of just how much populations grew or shrank from a year earlier.
Insider looked at how populations have changed for the 3,143 counties and county-equivalents. The above map shows in red the counties that saw their populations decline from July 1, 2019 to July 1, 2020, while counties in blue show population increases over that same period.
More counties in the Northeast region of the US saw a decline in their populations over the year than those that saw growth. For instance, the majority of counties that make up New York saw a decline in population from July 2019 to July 2020. And even among the counties that saw growth in the state, all of them were below 1%. Sullivan County, New York, which had the highest growth rate in the state, grew by 0.33% to 75,802.
The map also shows many counties in the Midwest saw a drop in their populations from July 2019 to July 2020.
On the other hand, counties in Florida mainly had population increases over a year. St. Johns County, Florida, grew the most in the state with a population increase by 5.15% to 278,715.
Some counties grew pretty rapidly in just one year. The following table shows the counties that grew the most from July 1, 2019 to July 1, 2020 among counties that had at least 10,000 residents in 2020:
Texas has been growing over the decade and this is seen also at the county-level. Six of the 10 counties with a population of at least 10,000 and that grew the fastest in just a year are in Texas. Comal County, Texas, had the largest population increase, where the population grew by 5.35% from 156,435 in July 2019 to 164,812 in July 2020.
Regardless of population size, 165 of the 254 counties in Texas grew by at least 0.01%.
While some counties grew, others shrank. The following table shows the counties that saw the largest population declines from July 1, 2019 to July 1, 2020 among counties that had at least 10,000 residents in 2020:
Yazoo County, Mississippi, was the fastest-shrinking county in 2020 among counties with at least 10,000 residents. All of the counties in the above table are located in Midwestern or Southern states except for Butte County in California.
The estimates released Tuesday come ahead of the release of data from the 2020 decennial census. "The estimates are based on the 2010 Census and were created without incorporation or consideration of the 2020 Census results," the Census Bureau wrote about the population estimates.