PHOENIX — People must really love a good sunset!
The census bureau released its American Community Survey 2018 'One-Year Estimates' today, showing Arizona is the fastest-growing state in the nation.
According to the estimates, Arizona's population grew from 7,016,270 in 2017 to 7,171,646 in 2018. That is a year over year increase of 2.2 percent.
This is a drastic change from the 2016 to 2017 comparison in which Arizona was only the 10th fastest-growing state in the nation with a rate of 1.2 percent growth.
The state’s continued population growth in the past decade has most demographic experts expecting the state to gain a congressional seat following next year’s decennial census, going from a congressional delegation of 9 to 10.
Population statistics were also released for the country’s 836 counties that have populations over 65,000 and Maricopa, Arizona’s largest county, is the fastest-growing of all of the nation’s counties with a population over one million.
Arizona’s population growth is followed by other sunbelt neighbors, Idaho and Utah, both of which grew by about 2.1 percent and 1.9 percent, respectively. The list of states that are losing population is topped by New York, which shrunk by 1.5 percent.
Additional estimates from the American Community Survey released by the census today can be found on their new data site data.census.gov.
| State | 2018 Population | 2017-2018 Change |
| Arizona | 7,171,646 | 2.21% |
| Idaho | 1,754,208 | 2.17% |
| Utah | 3,161,105 | 1.91% |
| Washington | 7,535,591 | 1.75% |
| Colorado | 5,695,564 | 1.58% |
| Florida | 21,299,325 | 1.50% |
| South Dakota | 882,235 | 1.45% |
| Texas | 28,701,845 | 1.40% |
| District of Columbia | 702,455 | 1.22% |
| Nevada | 3,034,392 | 1.21% |
