The Census has released its population estimates for 2020

[Avalanchez71]

Have not seen a map, but this seems to make little sense, as there are way more people west of I-79 than east of it, and, of course, that doesn't say what they would do with the area south of it.

Congressional districts within a state must have equal population.

They have to be substantially equal.

[NWI_Irish96]

Thanks - that is interesting. So the city and county population figures won't necessarily be publicly available yet. Do you know if there is an estimated date of when that will be released?

Will it be human-readable enough to update Wikipedia?

I don't work in the data release area, so I don't know exactly what is involved in extracting data from the "legacy version" that is being released today, or if it's going to the public or just the states. The user-friendly version will be delivered no later than September 30 but is likely to be closer to mid-September.

[DTComposer]

I'm downloading some .pl files, and here's what I'm pulling for the largest cities (I'll update as I pull more).

UPDATE: All cities above 500,000 are on the list, plus Atlanta, which had been above 500K in previous estimates.

1. New York - 8,804,190
2. Los Angeles - 3,898,747
3. Chicago - 2,746,388
4. Houston - 2,304,580
5. Phoenix - 1,608,139
6. Philadelphia - 1,603,797
7. San Antonio - 1,434,625
8. San Diego - 1,386,932
9. Dallas - 1,304,379
10. San Jose - 1,013,240
11. Austin - 961,855
12. Jacksonville - 949,611
13. Fort Worth - 918,915
14. Columbus - 905,748
15. Indianapolis - 897,041
16. Charlotte - 874,579
17. San Francisco - 873,965
18. Seattle - 737,015
19. Denver - 715,522
20. Washington - 689,545
21. Nashville - 689,447
22. Oklahoma City - 681,054
23. El Paso - 678,815
24. Boston - 675,647
25. Portland - 652,503
26. Las Vegas - 641,903
27. Detroit - 639,111
28. Memphis - 633,104
29. Louisville - 633,045
30. Baltimore - 585,708
31. Milwaukee - 577,222
32. Albuquerque - 564,559
33. Tucson - 542,629
34. Fresno - 542,107
35. Sacramento - 524,903
36. Kansas City - 508,090
37. Mesa - 504,258
38. Atlanta - 498,715

[triplemultiplex]

Wow, Detriot doesn't even break the top 25 anymore.  They had like a million people in 1960.

[Max Rockatansky]

Wow, Detriot doesn't even break the top 25 anymore.  They had like a million people in 1960.

More like 1.67 million.  Kind of amazing to think that can happen to a modern city without a major war or natural disaster occurring isn't it?

[kernals12]

There's something fishy about New York's results. As I said earlier, one demographer suggested many New Yorkers got double counted when they fled to their second homes during the pandemic

Also surprised Austin didn't overtake San Jose.

And the 2019 estimate for Boston was 692,000 so that's a significant miss.

[Scott5114]

Congrats to Alexander County, IL, for causing the Census Bureau to have to make a legend entry for just them.

[roadman65]

Houston is getting close to overtaking Chicago. With people fleeing NY lately, it won't be long that they become third.

[Scott5114]

Houston is getting close to overtaking Chicago. With people fleeing NY lately, it won't be long that they become third.

What makes you think they're fleeing to Houston, though? Especially considering that all of the NY counties that lost population are upstate.

[mgk920]

How did NYC get to over 8.8M?  They cracked 8M for the first time in the city's history in 2000 and ISTR that estimates had them shrinking in recent years.



Mike

[hotdogPi]

How did NYC get to over 8.8M?  They cracked 8M for the first time in the city's history in 2000 and ISTR that estimates had them shrinking in recent years.



Mike

On the other hand, Loving County, Texas had 82 in 2010, was estimated at 169 in 2019, and counted only 64 in 2020 – it was predicted to more than double, but it went down instead.

[SkyPesos]

From the latest estimates, Cincinnati went above 300k people a bit, and was above both St Louis and Pittsburgh, which both lost people. St Louis, which was the highest population of the three in 2010, became the lowest in the estimates. Let's see if it'll hold true in the census counts.

[kevinb1994]

This isn't really much of a surprise, but Birmingham isn't the biggest city in Alabama anymore. It's Huntsville.

[mgk920]

This isn't really much of a surprise, but Birmingham isn't the biggest city in Alabama anymore. It's Huntsville.

One word here - 'annexation'.

Mike

[kevinb1994]

This isn't really much of a surprise, but Birmingham isn't the biggest city in Alabama anymore. It's Huntsville.

One word here - 'annexation'.

Mike

It's like how other cities have, in the past, used it to grow their size and scale.

[Bruce]

How did NYC get to over 8.8M?  They cracked 8M for the first time in the city's history in 2000 and ISTR that estimates had them shrinking in recent years.



Mike

On the other hand, Loving County, Texas had 82 in 2010, was estimated at 169 in 2019, and counted only 64 in 2020 – it was predicted to more than double, but it went down instead.

It's entirely possible that enough residents didn't fill out their Census questionnaire, refused to answer the door for follow-up enumeration, or were missed entirely because of the prematurely-shortened enumeration schedule.

[Scott5114]

This isn't really much of a surprise, but Birmingham isn't the biggest city in Alabama anymore. It's Huntsville.

One word here - 'annexation'.

Mike

It's like how other cities have, in the past, used it to grow their size and scale.

Could you explain how annexation could do anything but grow their size and scale?

[hotdogPi]

This isn't really much of a surprise, but Birmingham isn't the biggest city in Alabama anymore. It's Huntsville.

One word here - 'annexation'.

Mike

It's like how other cities have, in the past, used it to grow their size and scale.

Could you explain how annexation could do anything but grow their size and scale?

Marion, Illinois

[oscar]

On the other hand, Loving County, Texas had 82 in 2010, was estimated at 169 in 2019, and counted only 64 in 2020 – it was predicted to more than double, but it went down instead.

That might keep Kalawao County HI from claiming the title for smallest population, if this source is correct. That population estimate presumably includes resident state Department of Health and National Park Service employees, in addition to the handful of Hansen's Disease patients who still live there.

OTOH, that source says that Kalawao is Hawaii's sixth largest county. Hawaii has only five counties.

[hotdogPi]

On the other hand, Loving County, Texas had 82 in 2010, was estimated at 169 in 2019, and counted only 64 in 2020 – it was predicted to more than double, but it went down instead.

That might keep Kalawao County HI from claiming the title for smallest population, if this source is correct. That population estimate presumably includes resident state Department of Health and National Park Service employees, in addition to the handful of Hansen's Disease patients who still live there.

OTOH, that source says that Kalawao is Hawaii's sixth largest county. Hawaii has only five counties.

Wikipedia articles on both counties have been updated for 2020, and both say that Loving County is smaller.

[kernals12]

How did NYC get to over 8.8M?  They cracked 8M for the first time in the city's history in 2000 and ISTR that estimates had them shrinking in recent years.



Mike

On the other hand, Loving County, Texas had 82 in 2010, was estimated at 169 in 2019, and counted only 64 in 2020 – it was predicted to more than double, but it went down instead.

How can they get that wrong? They could literally just physically count every person who lives there

[webny99]

PSA: Official county-level population data for the 2020 Census is now available on the Census website.
https://www.census.gov/library/visualizations/interactive/2020-population-and-housing-state-data.html

[webny99]

Houston is getting close to overtaking Chicago. With people fleeing NY lately, it won't be long that they become third.

What makes you think they're fleeing to Houston, though? Especially considering that all of the NY counties that lost population are upstate.

"People are fleeing NY!" was never a narrative that I believed on any level, and the data released today prove it. If there's been any mass migration out of NYC, it's primarily been since (and possibly during) the 2020 census; and at least some has been to elsewhere in the state.

You are correct about the counties losing population all being Upstate. To get a bit more granular, since 2010:

-All five of NYC's boroughs grew by at least 5%
-The Long Island counties, Nassau and Suffolk, grew by 4.2% and 2.2% respectively
-Westchester County grew by 5.8%, Orange by 7.6%, and Rockland by 8.5%

-Of the remaining 52 counties, only 13 gained population, of which 10 are pretty obvious: Erie (Buffalo), Monroe (Rochester), Ontario (Rochester suburbs/exurbs), Onondaga (Syracuse), Jefferson (Watertown), Tompkins (Ithaca), Albany, Schenectady, Saratoga, Rensselaer (Albany area). The remaining 3 are oddballs: Warren (north of Albany, mostly rural, broke even with a +30 numeric increase), Hamilton (smallest county in the state with only 5,107 residents, likely a variation in seasonal residents), and Sullivan (mostly rural, but borderline NYC exurbia).

-Overall, 14 of the 15 most populous counties gained population. Dutchess is the only exception with a -0.5% loss.

[kernals12]

Houston is getting close to overtaking Chicago. With people fleeing NY lately, it won't be long that they become third.

What makes you think they're fleeing to Houston, though? Especially considering that all of the NY counties that lost population are upstate.

"People are fleeing NY!" was never a narrative that I believed on any level, and the data released today prove it. If there's been any mass migration out of NYC, it's primarily been since (and possibly during) the 2020 census; and at least some has been to elsewhere in the state.

You are correct about the counties losing population all being Upstate. To get a bit more granular, since 2010:

-All five of NYC's boroughs grew by at least 5%
-The Long Island counties, Nassau and Suffolk, grew by 4.2% and 2.2% respectively
-Westchester County grew by 5.8%, Orange by 7.6%, and Rockland by 8.5%

-Of the remaining 52 counties, only 13 gained population, of which 10 are pretty obvious: Erie (Buffalo), Monroe (Rochester), Ontario (Rochester suburbs/exurbs), Onondaga (Syracuse), Jefferson (Watertown), Tompkins (Ithaca), Albany, Schenectady, Saratoga, Rensselaer (Albany area). The remaining 3 are oddballs: Warren (north of Albany, mostly rural, broke even with a +30 numeric increase), Hamilton (smallest county in the state with only 5,107 residents, likely a variation in seasonal residents), and Sullivan (mostly rural, but borderline NYC exurbia).

-Overall, 14 of the top 15 counties gained population. Dutchess is the only exception with a -0.5% loss.

Except that's literally the truth and it's been so for decades.

[webny99]

In case you haven't noticed, I'm super excited to have the 2020 census data!

A few more topline takeaways: the two things that I wanted most both happened. My state passed 20M residents (somewhat surprising) and my county passed 750K residents (unsurprising to me, but a surprise according to estimates, which predicted a decrease from the 744,344 reported in 2010; instead, the actual figure is 759,443  )

A third thing that wasn't even on my radar but I am happy about: the city of Rochester grew for the first time in 70 years. Sure, it was only by 0.36% (from 210,674 to 211,328), but still, a positive's a positive! There was a tradeoff, however: the growth wasn't quite enough to stay ahead of Yonkers (which I thought was in a different league with only 193K residents back in 2010... yikes). So for the first time since 1898 (!), Yonkers now edges Rochester out as the third-largest city in the state with a population of 211,569... so close.
https://www.wxxinews.org/post/census-rochester-falls-new-yorks-fourth-largest-city