By David Purtell – Digital Editor, Triangle Business Journal

North Carolina remains one of the fastest-growing states in the country and is now home to more than 11 million people, according to new data from the U.S. Census Bureau.

The state added more than 164,800 people between 2023 and 2024, bringing the estimated population to 11,046,024, the ninth largest state ahead of Michigan and behind Georgia.

For context, North Carolina had 10.4 million residents in 2020. The state’s population has grown nearly 6 percent in four years.

Between July 1, 2023, and July 1 of this year, Census estimates show North Carolina’s population grew by 1.5 percent, the eighth fastest rate among the states. Its numeric growth of 164,835 was the fourth highest behind first place Texas followed by Florida and California. Texas added more than 560,000 people while Florida came in just shy of 470,000. California, which has seen its population drop in recent years, gained 232,000 people — but its estimated 39.4 million residents remains slightly below what it was in 2020.

Florida and Texas had the fastest rates of growth, at 2 percent and 1.8 percent, respectively.

The nation as a whole grew by 1 percent between 2023 and 2024, surpassing 340 million people. The growth rate is the fastest since 2001 and was driven in large part by immigration, according to the Census.

As for North Carolina, the rapid pace of growth continues to show up in booming region’s such as the Triangle, the coast and Charlotte. That has resulted in a surging construction industry for new homes but has also put extreme pressure on the supply of available homes.

Notably, incredible amounts of new wealth has poured into the Triangle and the coastal regions as high net-worth individuals from the West Coast and Northeast relocate here for work or to start new companies. Also, Raleigh and Wilmington are among the metro areas seeing the highest rates of growth among the population of older Americans.

Companies are following the trend, as Raleigh, Durham and many smaller communities outside the Triangle routinely attract large economic development projects from some of the largest companies in the world.

The preceding article originally appeared on December 20, 2024 at the Triangle Business Journal’s website and is made available here for educational purposes only. This constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in Title 17 U.S.C. section 106A-117 of the U.S. Copyright Law.