Population Boom: 2020 Census Data Show Maricopa County Growth

PHOENIX, AZ — The 2020 Census released its final results, showing Maricopa County’s drastic 15.8 percent population growth from 2010 to 2020.

"We are excited to reach this milestone of delivering the first detailed statistics from the 2020 Census," said acting Census Bureau Director Ron Jarmin. "We appreciate the public's patience as Census Bureau staff worked diligently to process these data and ensure it meets our quality standards."

According to the data, from 2010 to 2020, Maricopa County’s population grew by 603,451 people to 4,420,568 residents. Maricopa County grew at more than twice the rate of the rest of the nation: the U.S. on the whole only saw a 7.4 percent population growth.

Out of 3,138 counties in the United States, Maricopa was the 200th-fastest growing over the past decade.

Census data also gives some insight into the Valley’s ongoing housing and homelessness crisis: while Arizona's population grew 11.9 percent, available housing only grew 8.3 percent over the past decade.

Maricopa County saw the largest population growth in the state, followed by Greenle County with an increase of 13.3 percent and 1,126 residents, Pinal County with 13.2 percent increase and 49,494 residents and Yavapai County with an increase of 11.9 percent and 25,176 more residents. Apache, Navajo, Gila, La Paz and Cochise counties all saw population declines from 2010 to 2020. La Paz had the most significant decrease, at 19.2 percent and 3,932 fewer residents.

The shrinking in those counties and growth in the greater Phoenix area mirror national trends, which showed metro areas outpacing rural ones in growth. The population of U.S. metros grew 9 percent from 2010 to 2020. By 2020, 86 percent of the country's population lived in metros, versus 85 percent a decade prior.

"Many counties within metro areas saw growth, especially those in the south and west. However, as we've been seeing in our annual population estimates, our nation is growing slower than it used to," said Marc Perry, a senior demographer at the Census Bureau. "This decline is evident at the local level where around 52% of the counties in the United States saw their 2020 Census populations decrease from their 2010 Census populations."

The Census Bureau ranked the Phoenix-Mesa-Chandler metropolitan statistical area as the 11th-largest in the country.