Wake, Mecklenburg counties drive NC growth, but pace is higher elsewhere, census shows
Two metro areas in the Carolinas are among the fastest growing in the country, but they may not be the ones you’d expect.
The Myrtle Beach and Wilmington metro areas, which occupy about 150 miles of Atlantic coastline where the two states meet, are among the top 10 in percentage growth in the country since 2020, according to the latest estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau. The population of the Myrtle Beach area grew 17.8% between April 2020 and last July 1, second only to The Villages in Florida. The Wilmington area grew 13.7%.
North Carolina’s two big urban counties still drive the state’s population growth. Combined, Wake and Mecklenburg counties have added nearly 194,000 residents since 2020, accounting for nearly a third of the state’s overall growth during that time.
But the pace of growth is higher in the outer suburbs of Charlotte and Raleigh and in counties along the coast.
Nine counties have grown by 10% or more since 2020, including Franklin, Johnston and Chatham in the Triangle and Lincoln, Union and Iredell outside Charlotte. The fast-growing coastal counties are Currituck in the northeast and two that are part of the Wilmington metro area — Brunswick and Pender.
The new census numbers released Thursday include population estimates for counties and metro areas as of last July 1. They show Wake remains the most populous county in the state, with an estimated 1,232,444 residents, followed by Mecklenburg with 1,206,285.
Tyrrell County, on Albemarle Sound, remains the state’s smallest, with just 3,517 residents.
Tyrrell is among 16 rural counties that have lost population since 2020. Nine of them are east of Interstate 95, where a changing farm economy and the loss of traditional manufacturing have fueled long-term population declines.
Immigration drives growth in nation’s metro areas
Nationwide, the new Census Bureau numbers show metro areas beginning to rebound from the COVID-19 pandemic, when places like New York, San Francisco and Washington, D.C., actually lost population. Collectively, metro areas grew about 1.1% in the year ending last July, slightly outpacing national population growth.
Migration from other countries was responsible for most of that growth, according to the Census Bureau. All of the nation’s 387 metro areas had positive net international migration between 2023 and 2024, accounting for about 84% of overall metro growth. The rest was natural change — the surplus of births compared to deaths.
In terms of domestic migration, more people left metro areas overall than moved in, according to the Census Bureau.
“Population growth in metro areas is being shaped by international migration,” Kristie Wilder, a demographer in the Census Bureau’s Population Division, said in a statement. “While births continue to contribute to overall growth, rising net international migration is offsetting the ongoing net domestic outmigration we see in many of these areas.”
That trend is evident in North Carolina. In Mecklenburg County, migrants from other countries accounted for 58% of population growth since 2020, more than natural growth and domestic migration combined. Same goes for 14 other counties in the state. That includes Durham, where the Census Bureau estimates that an influx of 14,945 international migrants more than compensated for a net 2,775 people who left to live elsewhere in the country.
Because the estimates are for last summer, they don’t reflect the changes in immigration policies enacted by the Trump administration.
The Charlotte metro area, which includes three counties in South Carolina, has grown by more than 200,000 residents since 2020, more than all but eight other metro areas in the country. With an estimated 2,883,370 residents last summer, Charlotte became the 21st largest metro area, leaping ahead of Baltimore last year.
The U.S. Office of Management and Budget has determined that the Triangle is two distinct metro areas — Raleigh-Cary and Durham-Chapel Hill. Together, they have nearly 2.2 million residents.
