Alabama’s population continued to grow from 2020 to 2021, despite the heavy toll of the COVID-19 pandemic, as several suburban counties saw substantial year-over-year gains and every county along the Tennessee border added people.
Overall, 32 of Alabama’s 67 counties added at least some people, according to population estimates released this spring from the U.S. Census Bureau. The leaders were a pair of usual suspects. Limestone County, the western half of the Huntsville metro, remained the fastest growing county in the state. Baldwin County, just across the bay from Mobile and home to Alabama’s beaches, stayed close on its heels.
In third place was a bit of surprise, fast-growing Henry County just outside Dothan. And that was followed by Cullman County, which added nearly 1,500 people from 2020 to 2021.
The rest of the top 10 includes Madison County, home to most of Huntsville city, three counties in the greater Birmingham metro area, one county outside Montgomery and Lee County, home of Auburn University.
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For most of the last decade Baldwin was Alabama’s fastest growing county, before being unseated by Limestone.
Limestone County, on the Tennessee border, added nearly 3,200 people between July 1, 2020, and July 1, 2021. That was a growth of 3.1% from 2020 to 2021, the fastest rate in Alabama.
Baldwin County, on the coast, saw a continuation of its own long-running rapid growth, the new estimates showed. It added nearly 6,200 people in just one year. That’s the most total people added by any one county over the course of the year. That worked out to a 2.6% growth rate, or second highest rate.
Alabama as a whole grew by about 15,000 people between 2020 and 2021, and nearly half of all Alabama counties added population.
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While much of that growth was in north Alabama, there were some growing aras in the south, especially around Dothan in the Wiregrass region in the southeast corner of the state. Henry County, just north of Dothan, grew by about 1.7%, the fastest among the Wiregrass area counties, though each of nearby Houston, Coffee, Dale and Geneva counties added people.
Limestone and Baldwin are two examples of Alabama’s growing suburbs. But the same trend can be found near Bimringham and Montgomery.
St. Clair, Shelby and Bibb counties, all in the Birmingham-Hoover metro area, were each in the top 10 fastest growing counties in Alabama. The same is true for Elmore County, just outside of Montgomery.
Do you have an idea for a data story about Alabama? Email Ramsey Archibald at rarchibald@al.com, and follow him on Twitter @RamseyArchibald. Read more Alabama data stories here.