See How Watsonville Grew Over The Past Decade

WATSONVILLE, CA — The City of Watsonville saw another 1,400 people join the community over the past decade, according to 2020 census data.

The U.S. Census Bureau statistics illustrate population changes for the nation, states and communities down to the block level. The data, which shows an increase in the population of the nation’s metro areas compared to a decade ago, also shows population changes in smaller cities.

The data represents where people were living as of April 1, 2020.

Watsonville's population growth represents a three percent increase.

Here's how other Santa Cruz County cities compare:

• Capitola: +20, zero percent growth.
• Scotts Valley: +600, 5.5 percent growth.
• Watsonville: +3,000, five percent growth.

Since the 2010 census, the population of U.S. metro areas overall has grown by 9 percent. Eighty-six percent of the country’s population was living in metro areas in 2020, compared to 85 percent in 2010.

Metro areas in the south and western United States saw the most growth, according to Marc Perry, a senior demographer at the Census Bureau.

“However, as we’ve been seeing in our annual population estimates, our nation is growing slower than it used to,” Perry said in a news release. “This decline is evident at the local level, where around 52 percent of the counties in the United States saw their 2020 census populations decrease from their 2010 census populations.”

Here are some other interesting findings from the data:

• The largest city in the United States in 2020 remains New York, with 8.8 million people.

• The largest county in the United States in 2020 remains Los Angeles County, with over 10 million people.

• The fastest-growing U.S. metro area between the 2010 and 2020 censuses was The Villages, FL, which grew 39 percent, from about 93,000 people to about 130,000.

• The U.S. metro areas with the largest declines in population were Pine Bluff, Arkansas, and Danville, Illinois, losing 12.5 percent and 9.1 percent of their populations, respectively.

Read more about the 2020 U.S. Census results.