Wake County will pass Mecklenburg County as the state's most populous in the next few years, if current growth trends continue, according to estimates released by the U.S. Census Bureau on Tuesday.
The Census Bureau released the estimated populations of every county and metropolitan area in the country, as of July 1, 2009. Starting with 2000 census data, the bureau uses administrative records, including death and birth data, to come up with updated population estimates.
How close are they? We'll have to wait until April 2011, when the Census Bureau is expected to release data from this spring's census.
Highlights from the new estimates:
Wake County's population was estimated at 897,214, compared to 913,639 in Mecklenburg County.
Wake's population has grown 43 percent since the 2000 census, and at that rate Wake will exceed Mecklenburg in about 2012.
Wake has more residents than the next three most populous counties in the Triangle region combined: Durham (269,706), Johnston (168,525) and Orange (129,083).
Among counties with 10,000 or more residents, North Carolina had six of the fastest-growing 100 counties in the country since 2000. They are: Union (14), Brunswick (38), Wake (45), Johnston (66), Hoke (95) and Currituck (98).
The estimated population of the Raleigh-Cary metropolitan statistical area, which includes Wake, Johnston and Franklin counties, was 1,125,827, up 41 percent since 2000.
The estimated population of the Durham-Chapel Hill metropolitan statistical area, which includes Durham, Orange, Chatham and Person, counties was 501,228, up 18 percent since 2000.
The estimated population of North Carolina was 9,380,884, up 16.5 percent.
