Everything's Bigger in Texas, Including Metro Region Population Gains
Bay City, Texas Shutterstock
New data from the Census Bureau show that four urban areas in the Lone Star State together added about 412,000 people last year.
Two metropolitan regions in Texas led the nation's urban areas last year in population gains, according to U.S. Census Bureau data released Thursday.
An area that includes Houston added an estimated 159,083 people to its population between July 2014 and July 2015, raising the total number of people living there to about 6.6 million. And the Dallas-Fort Worth area gained 144,704 people, the Census figures show, bringing the overall population there to roughly 7.1 million.
Regions in and around two other cities in the Lone Star State—Austin and San Antonio—also cracked the top 20 list of metro areas with the biggest population upticks. Nationally, other high-ranking regions included those around Atlanta, Phoenix and New York City.
The four Texas metro areas on the top 20 list together added about 412,000 people in 2015 to the state's population, which now stands upwards of 27.4 million, according to the Census Bureau.
Metro areas in Florida, Texas and the Carolinas saw the fastest population growth between 2014 and last year, based on the newly released data.
For the third year in a row, according to the Census Bureau, The Villages, Florida, a cluster of retirement communities located northwest of Orlando, saw the swiftest growth of any urban region in the country, with its population rising by an estimated 4.3 percent between July 1, 2014 and July 1, 2015, to a total of about 118,891.
Including The Villages, six of the 20 metropolitan areas that saw the fastest growth in the nation last year were in the Sunshine State.
Texas metro regions locked down another five of the top 20 spots on the list of fast growers, while the second-quickest growing area in the nation encompassed Myrtle Beach and Conway, South Carolina.
While Texas and Florida experienced strong and fast growth, the most heavily populated U.S. metropolitan areas remain New York City and Los Angeles. The combined number of people living in these two regions accounts for an estimated 33,522,373—about 10 percent of the nation’s entire population, which is now around 321 million.
All of the population data the Census Bureau released on Thursday, which include figures for counties as well, can be found here.
Bill Lucia is a Reporter at Government Executive's Route Fifty.
NEXT STORY: Flint Water Crisis Could Spur Changes to Michigan’s Emergency Manager Law