STOCKTON — San Joaquin County was the fastest growing county in California last year, according to a report from the California Department of Finance.
As of July 1, the county’s population was 728,509, up from 717,115, a 1.58 percent increase. The growth covers the period July 1, 2014 to July 1, 2015.
Of the 11,354 increase, 4,754 came from “natural increase,” or the difference between births (10,183) and deaths (5,429). The rest of the county’s population increase came from net migration, the difference between people who moved into and out of the county. In San Joaquin County, that number was 6,600.
California’s population grew by 346,000 people in that period to total 39.1 million, a growth rate of 0.9 percent.
Migration is playing less of a role in California’s population growth — it accounted for just 24 percent of the state’s population growth over the past year. However, that’s not the case in San Joaquin County. Here, net migration accounted for 58 percent of the county’s population growth.
Net migration includes all people moving into and out of the county — from within California as well as other countries.
Smaller counties in remote areas continued to lose people or post smaller gains. Lassen County, for example, in northeastern California lost the most people: 815. Los Angeles County gained the most with nearly 69,000 added, bringing its total population to nearly 10.2 million.
Elsewhere in our region, Stanislaus County’s population grew to 537.957, a 1.16 percent increase over 2014. Merced County’s population grew to 270,156, up 0.97 percent.
The state’s 10 most populated counties were:
- Los Angeles, 10,192,374
- San Diego, 3,275,546
- Orange, 3,165,203
- Riverside, 2,331,040
- San Bernardino, 2,127,735
- Santa Clara, 1,915,407
- Alameda, 1,619,244
- Sacramento, 1,489,308
- Contra Costa, 1,116,385
- Fresno, 980,980
The 10 fastest growing counties from 2014-15 were:
- San Joaquin, 1.58 percent
- Monterey, 1.52 percent
- Santa Clara, 1.38 percent
- Yolo, 1.37 percent
- Alameda, 1.28 percent
- Contra Costa, 1.27 percent
- Fresno, 1.23 percent
- San Francisco, 1.22 percent
- Santa Barbara, 1.19 percent
- Stanislaus, 1.16 percent
The counties that saw population losses from 2014-15:
- Lassen, -2.56 percent
- Mono, -1.06 percent
- Amador, -0.39 percent
- Del Norte, -0.32 percent
- Tuolumne, -0.32 percent
- Calaveras. -0.29 percent
- Nevada, -0.23 percent
- Plumas, -0.23 percent
- Trinity, -.23 percent
- Shasta, -0.21 percent
- Mendocino, -0.18 percent
- Mariposa, -0.17 percent
- Siskiyou, -0.16 percent
- Modoc, -0.11 percent
- Sierra, -0.06 percent
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