Estimates released this week from the U.S. Census Bureaus shows 50 of Iowa’s counties grew, while the other 49 lost population. Beth Henning of the State Library of Iowa says the counties around large cities are the fastest growing and the growth is a combination of people moving in from other counties, a high birth rate, and also migration from other countries. Henning says people looking for jobs is a big part of why people move to the metro counties. The metropolitan counties have the highest in-migration from other counties. Henning says there are some counties that have a high in-migration from other countries that are not the metropolitan counties — such as Buena Vista County. Henning says Iowa’s largest county reached a milestone: Polk County has now crossed the 400,000 mark for the first time, ranking it as the 92nd largest county in the U-S. Dallas County in central Iowa just west of Polk County is the fastest growing county in the state — growing nearly five percent since the 2000 census — to a population of nearly 52,000. Adams County is still the smallest county with 4264 residents. The new county population estimates, rankings, and maps are on the State Library’s State Data Center web site at www.iowadatacenter.org.
