Colorado's Population Still on the Rise

 Colorado is Ranked #4 in Population Growth

 2008 Population: 4,939,456

2007 Population: 4,842,770

Year-over-year Increase: 2%

With Colorado having seen 2% growth over the last year and 15% growth over the last eight years, it puts this state fourth on the list for population growth.

In 1950, Colorado's population was just over 1.3 million. By 1980, numbers were approaching 3 million. During the 1990s, the state added over one million inhabitants or about 275 people each day.

 In 2000, Colorado had ballooned to 4.3 million residents. Thus, over the past 50 years, Colorado's population has more than tripled in size. There are now more people living along the Front Range than there were living in the entire state ten years ago.
 
What accounts for this growth? Populations grow or shrink as a result of shifts in three demographic variables: fertility, migration, and mortality. Changes in population size are dependent on net migration (people moving into the state minus people moving out of the state) and natural factors (births minus deaths). Natural increase accounted for 38 percent of all growth during that period, over half came from migration from other states, and the remainder was due to migration from other countries.
 
The Census Bureau's new projections indicate that immigration will account for two-thirds of all growth nationwide over the next century. In Colorado, most population growth comes from domestic interstate migration (people moving in from other states). Yet this is often caused by what is known as secondary migration. Secondary migration occurs when people leave crowded areas in search of more space. This is happening around the U.S., as massive immigration drives the native population to move to less crowded areas.

Colorado has been a magnet for such migrants - notably, Californians trying to escape the effects of the states record population growth - growth that has been driven by high immigration levels. A full quarter of migration into Colorado in the past decade has come from California.

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