Virginia Population Trends

Even though the future is largely unknown and unpredictable, population projections provide an approximate idea of the expected future population size.

On July 13, 2022, the Demographics Research Group presented our analysis of the interrelationship between Virginia’s housing market and population trends to the General Assembly’s Housing Commission. After receiving a number of inquiries regarding the presentation, we are sharing a summary of the presentation with expanded commentary on some noteworthy trends. Throughout American history, the […]

Population projections provide an approximate idea of the expected future population size and are used in urban planning, resource allocation for emergency services, prioritizing public and private investments, and in many other ways. By using past observations with present trends and making certain plausible assumptions, we built the official 2020 projected population for each of […]

With the novel coronavirus causing a worldwide paradigm shift, I was genuinely tempted to jump into the data and analyze all possible permutations of what the potential impacts may be. Should I first plot the number of cases in Virginia with corresponding population densities on a map, or should I find causal connections between the […]

This morning the Weldon Cooper Center at the University of Virginia released its 2019 population estimates for Virginia’s counties and cities. The estimates show Virginia’s population inched up to 8,535,519 in 2019, after passing 8.5 million in 2018. Though Virginia has added over half a million new residents since the last census in 2010, population […]

There is an axiom in the technology sector, known as Amara’s law, which states that the short term impact of a new technology will typically be overestimated while the long term impact is usually underestimated. This is particularly true when considering the impact the internet was expected to have on where people choose to live. […]

Having a crystal ball that could foresee the future would be ideal, but in reality we can only rely on our ability to project Virginia’s population based on past trends. Population projections provide a lens to look into the future to anticipate what the decades ahead may hold. While projections are inherently uncertain, as the […]

This morning the Weldon Cooper Center at the University of Virginia released its 2018 population estimates for Virginia’s counties and cities. The estimates show that Virginia’s total population has continued to grow, passing 8.5 million in 2018. Though Virginia added over 50,000 new residents in the past year, growth is noticeably slower than ten years […]

Every year the Demographics Research Group is asked to give presentations on Virginia’s demographic trends, and this year, as is true every year, the demographic trends we explored depended on our audience’s area of interest  —school enrollment change for the Board of Education, population growth trends for the House Appropriations Committee, or population projections for […]

Late last week the IRS released their annual migration flows data, which showed that more people are moving out of Virginia than into it for the fourth year in a row. Virginia’s recent shift into out-migration is notable because prior to 2013, the IRS had never recorded out-migration for Virginia since it first began publishing […]