Golden State Has Biggest Population Gain in the Nation

California continued to drive the nation’s population increase in the last year, accounting for almost 20% of the growth in the U.S., according to Census Bureau estimates released Friday.

The new population estimates, the first to use Census 2000 data as a reference point, show the nation growing by 3.4 million people between April 1, 2000, and July 1, 2001.

The increase brought the U.S. population to 284.8 million, up 1.2% from April 2000.

California’s share of the increase was about 630,000 people and brought the number of state residents to 34.5 million, a little more than 12% of the U.S. population.

The second and third most populous states, respectively, remain Texas, with 21.3 million, and New York, with 19 million. Combined, the two states account for about 14% of the U.S. population.

The new Census Bureau numbers show that Nevada, Arizona and Colorado were the fastest growing states. Nevada, which has led the nation in the rate of growth for the last 15 years, saw its population jump about 5.4% between April 2000 and July 2001, to 2.1 million.

“I hesitate to say when growth is going to stop,” said John Haaga, a demographer with the nonprofit Population Reference Bureau.

“There’s been a long westward movement in this country,” he said. “More recently, it stopped being movement to the West Coast and filled in” other Western states.

Although good weather and solid economies were credited for raising those states’ populations, struggling states such as North Dakota and West Virginia showed the most dramatic population declines, according to the Census Bureau estimates.

In a little more than a year, the population of North Dakota dropped 1.2% to about 634,000, while West Virginia’s population sagged 0.4% to about 1.8 million.

The only other states to see population decreases were Iowa and Louisiana.

Although no states had population decreases from 1990 to 2000, Haaga said the new estimates otherwise generally reflect population trends found during the 1990s.

Census officials said the latest report also found the following:

* The 10 most populous states accounted for 54.2% of the U.S. population.

* The most populous states were scattered around the country. California was the only state among the top 10 in the West, while the Northeast, South and Midwest each had three states among the most populous.

* The South had the largest population increase--1.6 million--but the pace of growth in the West led the nation, at 2%.

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Associated Press contributed to this report.