Updated at 9:42 a.m., Friday, December 22, 2006
Hawai'i population increases by more than 12,000
Advertiser Staff
Hawai'i's population grew by more than 12,000 people from July 2005 to July 2006, according to statistics released by the U.S. Census Bureau today.Hawai'i, the 41st most populous state, grew to 1,285,498 residents from 1,273,278 in 2005.
The United States' population during that same span grew to 299,398,484 from 296,507,061.
The biggest decrease for any state was brought on by Hurricane Katrina, which devastated New Orleans and caused a mass exodus from Louisiana, where the state's 4.3 million population is a drop of nearly 220,000 people from a year earlier, a 5 percent loss, the Census Bureau reported.
Texas, a neighboring state of Louisiana, grew 579,275 residents in the year span while Florida and California gained 321,697 and 303,402, respectively. Rounding out the top five growth states were Georgia (231,388) and Arizona (213,311).
Arizona was the nation's fastest-growing state, percentage-wise, over the period, the Census statistics show, breaking Nevada's grip on the title, with its population rising 3.6 percent. Nevada ranked second this time,as its population climbed by 3.5 percent, followed by Idaho (2.6 percent), Georgia (2.6 percent) and Texas (2.5 percent).
California remains the most populous state with a population of 36.5 million on July 1, 2006, according to the estimates. Rounding out the top five states were Texas (23.5 million), New York (19.3 million), Florida (18.1 million) and Illinois (12.8 million).
The Census Bureau estimates population change by using factors such as births, deaths, administrative records and survey data to develop estimates of migration.
The report is available at www.census.gov.
