Large counties continue gaining population

A new report from the U-S Census Bureau finds Iowa’s most crowded counties gaining population while the rural areas continue to lose residents. In the past two years, 68 of Iowa’s 99 counties saw drops in populations. Nine of the ten biggest drops were in rural western counties. The state’s ten most populous counties account for almost half of Iowa’s total population. Pocahontas County had the largest decline at nearly four-percent while Dallas County saw the biggest gain of eight-point-five percent. Overall, the state only saw its population rise by four-tenths of one-percent. Polk County, home of Des Moines, is still Iowa’s biggest county with 386-thousand residents, while Adams County in the southwest is the smallest with just 43-hundred people. The period studied was April 1st of 2000 through July 1st of ’02.