More U.S. counties reversed pandemic-era population losses last year as large counties grew larger and small counties got smaller, the Census Bureau reported Thursday.

The federal agency said 1,876 or 60% of the nation’s 3,144 counties experienced population increases from 2022 to 2023, up from 52% from 2021 to 2022.

The South experienced the largest share of growing counties (950 out of 1,422, or 67%) last year, while a majority of Midwestern counties (542 out of 1,055, or 51%) grew, the first time this happened since 2020.

In other regions, 276 or 61% of 449 Western counties gained residents. In the Northeast, only 105 or 48% of 218 counties grew — but the bureau noted that was up from 83 counties that added headcount from 2021 to 2022.

“Domestic migration patterns are changing, and the impact on counties is especially evident,” said Lauren Bowers, chief of the Census Bureau’s Population Estimates Branch. “Areas which experienced high levels of domestic out-migration during the pandemic, such as in the Midwest and Northeast, are now seeing more counties with population growth.”

The bureau previously estimated that the U.S. population grew by 1.6 million residents to 334,914,895 people in December 2023, the sharpest single-year population gain since 2018. It credited the increase to a decline in deaths and immigration numbers surging back to pre-pandemic levels.

A surge in people moving to the South accounted for 87% of the nation’s population growth, or roughly 1.4 million people, last year. The West added 137,299 residents, the Midwest gained slightly over 126,000 residents after two years of decline and the Northeast lost 43,330 residents.

According to Thursday’s report, 2,515 or 80% of counties had positive net gains of international immigrants last year — including all counties in Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey and Rhode Island.

The report found the tiniest counties dying last year as more domestic and international migrants crowded into moderately populated and large counties nationwide.

The bureau said headcount increased by an average of 0.76% last year in the nation’s 618 large counties, defined as having populations over 100,000 people. Moderate-sized counties, with populations between 10,000 and 100,000 residents, grew by an average of 0.36%. On the other hand, the population declined by an average of 0.27% in the 741 counties with populations under 10,000 people.

The report showed domestic migration continuing a pandemic-era trend of people relocating primarily to counties in more affordable, lockdown-light states.

All but three of Florida’s 67 counties grew last year while other fast-growing states included Idaho, where 42 of its 44 counties gained residents, and Tennessee, where 90 of its 95 counties added people.

The 10 fastest-growing counties with populations of at least 20,000 residents were all in the South last year: six in Texas (Kaufman, Rockwall, Liberty, Chambers, Comal and Ellis) grew between 4.9% and 7.6%; two in Georgia (Jackson at 5.5% growth and Dawson at 5.1%); and one each in South Carolina (Jasper, 4.9%) and Virginia (New Kent, 4.7%).

In the same population range, California’s Lassen County experienced the sharpest population decrease at 3.9%. Next came Missouri’s Randolph County at a 2.1% loss and New York’s Bronx County, where the population shrank by 1.8% last year after declines of 3% in 2022 and 2.5% in 2021.

• Sean Salai can be reached at ssalai@washingtontimes.com.