Pima County Population Grows By 60K: U.S. Census

TUCSON, AZ — The 2020 Census released results showing a 6.4 percent population growth in Pima County 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, Pima County’s population grew by 63,170 people to 1,043,433 residents. The county grew at a slightly slower rate than the rest of the nation: the U.S. on the whole saw a 7.4 percent population growth.

Maricopa County saw the largest population growth in the state at 15.8 percent, with 603,451 more people, for a total population of 4,420,568. Greenle County saw an increase of 13.3 percent and 1,126 residents, Pinal County had a 13.2 percent increase with 49,494 more residents and Yavapai County saw 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 percentage decrease, at 19.2 percent and 3,932 fewer residents.

The shrinking in those counties and growth in the Tucson and Phoenix areas 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.