Charlotte area maintains pace as one of the fastest growing metro areas in the US
The Charlotte area added some 135,000 people from 2020 to 2023, with the region’s least populated counties seeing the biggest growth, newly released census estimates show.
As of last year, 2.8 million people call the region home. And when looking at the metro region’s growth from 2022 to last year, the addition of 50,458 people was sixth most out of any metro area in the country, census estimates show.
Lancaster County, in South Carolina, grew by 12%, according to a Charlotte Observer analysis of the data released Thursday morning. Lincoln County, northwest of Charlotte, grew by 9.7% — the sixth highest rate among North Carolina’s 100 counties.
Coastal Brunswick County in the Wilmington area led the state with a 15.8% increase in its population rate.
Mecklenburg County, now home to 1.16 million people, added 46,300 residents since 2020 — that’s a 4.1% increase.
Only one county in the area, Catawba County, did not keep pace with the state, whose population increased 3.7% from July 2020 to July 2023. North Carolina, with a population of 10.8 million, added 382,000 residents during that time.
More details from census county, metro area estimates
According to the census data:
▪ The nine-county Charlotte metro area was home to 2.8 million people last year, up 5.1% from three years earlier.
▪ The MSA grew by 5% from 2020 to 2023. Only three larger MSAs grew at a faster rate — Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, Dallas-Plano-Irving and Oralndo-Kissimmee-Sanford.
▪ The Charlotte area added about 135,000 between 2020 and last year.
▪ The region’s 1.84% growth rate between 2022 and last year topped its growth rate from 2020 to 2021 and from 2021 to 2022, which were 1.4% and 1.8%, respectively.
▪ Wake County remains the state’s largest county, with 1.19 million people. It added 59,700 people from 2020 to 2023, a 5.3% growth, which also surpassed Mecklenburg’s growth rate.
▪ Nearly one in five North Carolina counties lost population. Several of those are in the state’s northeast corner, between Interstate 85 and the ocean.
This story was originally published March 14, 2024 at 6:00 AM.
