NC in Focus
Keep up with our latest demographic insights
The U.S. Census Bureau released their 2022 population estimates for municipalities earlier this month. Here’s what the new data tell us about how North Carolina’s cities and towns have changed in the past year. Greensboro passes 300K residents On July 1st 2022, Greensboro’s estimated population was 301,115, up from an estimated 299,225 on July 1st 2021. Wake Forest also passed a major milestone, passing 50,000 residents as of 2022 (as predicted in our blog post…
Dr. Michael Cline is the state demographer for North Carolina at the Office of State Budget and Management and has given us permission to re-post his content here. On May 25, 2023, the US Census Bureau published the Demographic Profile and Demographic and Housing Characteristic (DHC) datasets for the 2020 Census. These datasets provide a more expansive picture of the population counted in the 2020 Census than the 2020 Census data published to date. From…
Dr. Michael Cline is the state demographer for North Carolina at the Office of State Budget and Management and has given us permission to re-post his content here. “We are a safe space where young people and families can be accepted and celebrated for who they are. It’s a safe space to be bilingual, bicultural, and to be yourself.” That is ISLA Executive Director Lwiza Escobar Garcia describing the role her organization plays in the…
From WoW Supermarket in Monroe, to Tienda Mi Pueblo in Durham; from Dirtbag Ales in Hope Mills to Tienda Los Nenes in Asheville; from Pura Vida Worldy Art in Charlotte to Diamante Arts & Cultural Center in Cary. The evidence of Hispanic population’s growth and cultural influence can be found across North Carolina. The Hispanic population in the state hasn’t just grown in the last three decades. Where the Hispanic population lives in North Carolina…
Dr. Michael Cline is the state demographer for North Carolina at the Office of State Budget and Management and has given us permission to re-post his content here. In 1989 a young couple moved to Greenville from Puerto Rico. Like many other young families who relocated to North Carolina, they were pursuing opportunity. The husband was embarking on his career (engineering), as his wife stayed home with their young daughter. Their daughter was soon joined…
Dr. Michael Cline is the state demographer for North Carolina at the Office of State Budget and Management and has given us permission to re-post his content here. In 2012 our office began preparing population estimates and projections of North Carolina’s Hispanic population because the demographic had grown exponentially since 1990 to become a significant part of the overall North Carolina population. These data included annual estimates and projections for Hispanic and Non-Hispanic population groups…
Baby Boomers — those born between 1946 and 1964 — started turning 65 in 2011. Since that time, over 100,000 North Carolinians have turned 65 each year and this trend will continue well into the future. As Mike Cline noted in his look at NC’s population projects, the older adult population in North Carolina is expected to grow at double the rate of the overall population.. We can see this trend already taking place: In…
Nationally, there are 384 metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs), which are defined as economically integrated sets of counties with a core central city with a population of 50,000 or more. MSAs can be located within one state, or they can span across multiple states. They range in size from Carson City, Nevada (58,933) to the New York-Newark-Jersey City MSA (19,768,458) which crosses New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. Within and including North Carolina, there are 17 unique metro regions, ranging from Goldsboro (116,835)…
From 2010 to 2020, North Carolina’s population grew by 9.8% with 49 of our 100 counties increasing in population. Among the largest gains: Charlotte and its suburbs, the Triangle region, and areas from Jacksonville (Onslow County) to Wilmington along the Atlantic Ocean. The map below shows a more detailed view of where we saw the biggest growth and losses amongst Census tracts. A Census tract is a unit of geographic measurement defined by the U.S.…
The majority of North Carolina’s growth over the past few decades has been from net migration, meaning more people moved here than moved away. We last looked at migration to North Carolina in June 2021, and wanted to see how things have changed over the past year. Where are our new residents moving from? Nearly 366,000 individuals moved to North Carolina in 2021, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey (ACS). Most of those…
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