Here’s How Florida's Population Changed Between 2016 And 2017

A majority of 2017’s fastest growing cities in the United States are in the south and seven of the country’s 15 fastest growing cities are in Texas, according to new population estimates released by the U.S. Census Bureau on Thursday.

The Census also released a list of the 15 cities with the largest population gains and a majority of those cities were also in the south. The population estimates released Thursday are for cities, boroughs, villages, towns and townships and are current as of July 1, 2017.

Florida's population as of July 1, 2017 is 20,984,400, according to the Census. That’s an increase of just over 2 million to the state’s population between 2016 and 2017 and a growth rate of 11.6 percent. The state’s growth rate was much higher than the nation’s growth rate of 0.7 percent.

Here’s how the population changed in Florida towns between 2016 and 2017:

• Tampa's population increased from 335,709 to 385,430
• St. Petersburg grew from 244,769 to 263,255
• Miami-Dade's population grew from 2,496,435 to 2,751,796

"San Antonio, Texas, tops the list with the largest population gain with an increase of over 24,200 people – an average of 66 people per day between 2016 and 2017," said Amel Toukabri, a demographer in the Population Division of the Census Bureau. “That’s a growth rate of 1.6 percent. This growth was enough to push San Antonio's population above the 1.5 million mark.”

Some of the other cities with the largest population gains were Phoenix, (24,000); Dallas (18,900); Fort Worth, Texas (18,700); Los Angeles (18,600); Seattle, Washington (17,500); and Charlotte, N.C. (15,600).

Regarding percentage change in population, 10 of the 15 fastest-growing large cities were located in the South, with seven in Texas. Between 2016 and 2017, Frisco, Texas (near Dallas), was the fastest-growing large city (population of 50,000 or more) at 8.2 percent, making its growth rate more than 11 times faster than the nation’s growth rate of 0.7 percent.

In Florida, Jacksonville's population ranked 13th on the fastest-growing large cities list with the its population increasing by 11,068. Jacksonville's population was listed as 277,453 in 2017, according to the Census.

Photo by Paul Scicchitano