Asheville area population declined after Helene, according to latest census
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Asheville metro declined by 634 residents in the year after Helene.
- Buncombe County lost 1,810 residents year-over-year, the largest drop in NC.
- North Carolina added 145,907 people, with growth concentrated in cities.
Call it the Helene effect. The Asheville metro area was the only one in North Carolina to lose population in the year ending last summer, according to the latest estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau.
The largest city in Western North Carolina was hit hard by wind and flooding from the remnants of Hurricane Helene in late September 2024. In the four years before the storm, the four-county Asheville metro area had grown by 16,045 residents, according to the census.
In the year after, the population declined by 634.
Buncombe County, where Asheville is located, had 1,810 fewer residents last July 1 than a year earlier, according to census estimates. The county led the state in numerical population loss, a distinction usually held by counties in the long-struggling northeast part of the state.
The main reason for Buncombe’s loss was the estimated 2,056 people who moved away, according to the Census Bureau.
Other mountain counties that lost population in the year ending last June 30 were McDowell, Mitchell, Swain and Watauga.
Overall, North Carolina added an estimated 145,907 people to its population in the year ending last June 30, more than all other states except Texas and Florida. The state’s rate of growth — 1.3% — was the third fastest during that time, behind only Idaho and the nation’s new fastest-growing state, South Carolina.
But the state’s growth has always been uneven, concentrated in the prosperous big cities and their suburbs and along the coast. Before Helene, western counties such as Buncombe and nearby Madison and Jackson were also among the growing areas, as retirees and others were attracted to mountain living.
The Census Bureau provides population estimates for 15 metro areas in North Carolina, ranging from Charlotte, with nearly 3 million residents, to Southern Pines/Pinehurst with fewer than 111,000. All of them grew last year except Asheville.
A dozen North Carolina counties have lost population since 2020, according to the Census Bureau, led by Hertford, Northampton and Halifax, all in the northeast corner of the state.
