Georgia's Fastest Growing Counties: U.S. Census Numbers Released

America's metropolitan areas grew by more than 2 million people last year, meaning that U.S. cities are now home to 275.3 million people.

New U.S. Census Bureau statistics released Thursday provide population estimates for the nation’s 381 metropolitan statistical areas, 536 micropolitan statistical areas and 3,142 counties.

The new figures show several Georgia counties ranking among the nation's 100 fastest growing.

From 2010 to 2015, five Georgia counties rank in the top 100:

• Long County -- 22.7 percent growth
• Forsyth County -- 21 percent growth
• Bryan County -- 16.2 percent growth
• Columbia County -- 16.1 percent growth
• Gwinnett County -- 11.2 percent growth

The fastest-growing county in the nation over that period of time was Williams County, N.D., which experienced a 57.6 growth spurt.

From 2014 to 2015, eight counties rank in the top 100:

• Forsyth County -- 4.2 percent growth
• Bryan County -- 3.6 percent growth
• Columbia County -- 3.4 percent growth
• Long County -- 3.2 percent growth
• Effingham County -- 3.0 percent growth
• Clarke County -- 2.6 percent growth
• Fannin County -- 2.5 percent growth
• Jackson County -- 2.4 percent growth

McKenzie County, N.D., grew at a 16.7 percent clip, ranking it No. 1 over the past year.

The estimates are all for counties with 10,000 or more people in population.

Here are some other statistics about the rest of the nation:

• Los Angeles, Calif., is still the nation’s most populous county with 10.2 million people on July 1, 2015.
• The nation’s second-most populous county — Cook, Ill. — experienced its first population decline since 2007.
• Most (285 of the 381) metro areas nationwide gained population between 2014 and 2015.
• Four of the 20 fastest-growing metro areas between 2014 and 2015 were in the Mountain states: Greeley and Fort Collins in Colorado and St. George and Provo-Orem in Utah.
• Four Texas metro areas together added more people last year than any state in the country except for Texas as a whole. The population in these four metro areas increased by more than 400,000 people.