When Georgia’s population passed the coveted 10-million mark a few years ago, it sent a message the Peach State was among the country’s largest states (currently eighth, behind Ohio) and growing, like most of its Sunbelt brethren.

The official U.S. Census Bureau 2020 statewide count released Monday shows that trajectory continues.

Georgia packed on another 1 million residents between 2010 and the decennial count last year, climbing up to 10.7 million people overall. Just 10 states have more than 10 million people, according to the U.S. Census data.

Like much of the South, Georgia’s growth is ahead of the national average, but the past decade’s population boost doesn’t match that of the gangbusters 1980s and ’90s. And for the first time since the 1990 Census, Georgia won’t be adding a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, instead keeping 14.

All this population talk got us thinking about trends closer to home.

Demographic and population data from the 2020 count for cities and counties won’t be released until later this year, which is a bummer.  But according to the AJC, the consensus among “Atlanta-area officials” is that the hard numbers will show population growth has slowed across the region in recent years.

All indicators, however, suggest the City of Atlanta will be an exception. 

Atlanta’s population dipped to a lowpoint of about 390,000 residents in 1990, as decades of suburban flight and the ravages of drug and crime epidemics took a toll.

According to the most recent Census estimates, however, the City of Atlanta’s population had climbed to 506,000 as of July 2019. (The city’s land mass, of course, is just a sliver of metro Atlanta.)

That’s the most people living in Atlanta proper in its history. But as city leaders have noted, Atlanta remains relatively spread out as just the 316th densest city in the U.S.—a statistic that butts heads with the “We Full” argument.

Compared to the official U.S. Census count in 2010, the recent population estimate shows almost 19 percent more people living within city limits in less than a decade.

But wait—there’s more.

World Population Review

Another database, the World Population Review, suggests the City of Atlanta has continued to grow at an astonishing clip the past two years—besting most Sunbelt rivals besides Austin in terms of relative population growth.

The World Population Review pegs the current population within Atlanta city limits at 524,067.

That’s almost 25 percent more Atlantans right now versus 2010. And that seems about right, right?

• 2020 Atlanta renter data show influx of people from suburbs, NYC, Chicago (Urbanize Atlanta)