Arizona Population Growth: State Is 5th-Fastest Growing In U.S.

If Arizona is seeming a lot more crowded lately, you are not imagining things. The United States Census Bureau said on Wednesday that the state tied as the fifth-fastest growing state by percentage in the country in 2017.

The other state was Florida. Both saw their population grow by 1.6 percent in 2017 compared to the year before.

The two states followed Idaho, Nevada, Utah, and Washington.

By actual population, the state was only the seventh-fastest growing one in the nation,

Arizona saw its population rise to 7,016,260 from 6,908,62 in 2016. It's the first time the state's population has topped seven million.

A certain percentage of the population growth came the natural way: There were 28,100 more births than deaths in Arizona in 2017. The state was also a popular destination for people moving. More than 79,000 migrated to Arizona in 2017, mostly from other U.S. states.

As for how individual cities did, the Census Bureau will release population numbers for metro areas next March and for cities in May.

Phoenix, with around 1.6 million people, is the fifth largest in the country.

Photo of Phoenix via the City of Phoenix