Williamson County was the 43rd-fastest growing county in the United States over the past five years, and the 19th-fastest growing county with a population of more than 10,000 in 2009, according to new data released Thursday by the U.S. Census Bureau.
The data comes from the U.S. Census Bureau’s 5-Year American Community Survey, the longest and most-accurate demographic information that the Census Bureau collects in-between the decennial censuses. You can explore the data for the entire U.S., county by county, in the map and table posted below this article.
According to the data, Williamson County was the fastest growing county in the Austin area by percentage in that time, growing by 84,780 new residents from 372,438 in 2009 to 457,218 in 2014, a growth rate of 22.7 percent.
Hays County also grew at a fast clip between 2009 and 2014, adding 29,039 residents to grow its 2009 population of 141,371 to 170,410 in 2014, a growth rate of 20.5 percent. Over the past five years, Hays County was the 28th-fastest growing county with a population of more than 10,000.
Travis County, the 105th-fastest growing large county in the U.S., grew by 13 percent in that time, going from a population of 966,761 to 1,092,810 in 2014 — adding 126,049 residents over the past five years.
Further down the list is Bastrop County, which grew the slowest among the counties in the Austin area. It added 3,780 new residents between 2009 and 2010, growing from 71,928 residents to 75,708 residents, a growth rate of slightly more than 5 percent.
Overall, Texas counties dominated top of the fastest-growing counties in the U.S., taking seven of the top 20 spots for percentage population growth for counties with more than 10,000 residents. The fastest growing county in Texas with more than 10,000 residents over the past five years, by percentage, is Waller County, which grew by 26 percent from 35,552 in 2009 to 44,825 residents in 2014.
The fastest-growing county with 10,000 or more residents in the U.S. is Sumter County, Florida, which grew from a population of 71,519 in 2009 to 103,708 in 2014, growing by 32,189 residents, a growth rate of 45 percent.
