The District's population grew faster than any state in the nation this year, an influx led by Americans moving into the thriving city, new Census Bureau data show.
The population grew by 2.7 percent from April 2010 to July 2011, according to data the Census Bureau released Wednesday. The increase of more than 16,000 residents already equals half of the city's total population increase during the 10 years before April 2010.
Meanwhile, Virginia's population increase of nearly 96,000 new residents ranked as the seventh-largest numerical increase in the country and Maryland's population increase ranked the 12th largest. The increases in both states were led by the number of births, not people moving in.
| What's driving the growth? | |||||||||
| Current | Total | Growth | Births - | Share of | Immig- | Share of | Domestic | Share of | |
| population | growth | percent | deaths | all growth | ration | all growth | growth | all growth | |
| District | 617,996 | 16,273 | 2.7% | 5,364 | 33.0% | 2,460 | 15.1% | 8,334 | 51.2% |
| Maryland | 5.83m | 54,737 | 0.9% | 36,928 | 67.5% | 20,928 | 38.2% | -2,994 | -5.5% |
| Virginia | 8.10m | 95,574 | 1.2% | 54,234 | 56.7% | 25,618 | 26.8% | 15,538 | 16.3% |
| U.S. | 311.6m | 2.85m | 0.9% | 1.95m | 68.6% | 894,291 | 31.4% | (X) | (X) |
| Source: U.S. Census, population growth from April 2010 to July 2011 | |||||||||
Demographers call the population shift "significant."
"The trend is in the continuation of growth we saw in last decade," said Mark Mather, a demographer with the Population Reference Bureau. "D.C. is making up for lost time."
D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray noted the swell in 2011 marked the first time since the early 1940s that the District has led the nation in population growth by percentage. Last year, the city posted its first 10-year population gain since the 1950 census. The city's population is now 617,996; it peaked in the 1950s with more than 800,000 residents.
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