Visual Capitalist December 5, 2025
Key Takeaways
- Post-pandemic population growth has concentrated in Sun Belt and fast-growing suburban counties, led by places like Harris County, TX and Maricopa County, AZ.
- Many large coastal urban cores, including Los Angeles County and several New York City boroughs, continue to lose residents even as national population growth recovers.
The COVID-19 pandemic reshaped where Americans live, and those shifts are now visible in the county population data from 2021 to 2024. This visualization highlights which counties gained or lost the most residents in the post-pandemic period.
The data for this visualization comes from the U.S. Census Bureau’s county population estimates, as compiled and analyzed by the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies.
Sun Belt and Texas Counties...
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