Florida has supplanted Idaho as the nation's fastest-growing state, after a 1.9% population increase in the past year. The Census Bureau report restores Florida to the top spot for the first time since 1957, after being blocked for decades mostly by Nevada, Politico reports. Florida's population now stands at 22,244,823—more than 9 times what it was in 1946, when the state began its unbroken string of yearly growth. The biggest increase in the past year by US region was in the South, at 1.1%. The West followed at 0.2%. Populations slipped 0.4% in the Northeast and 0.1% in the Midwest.
Migration from other states and countries helped drive Florida's jump, but the Census Bureau credits air conditioning in part for Florida's growth historically; the state's population increase averaged 6.1% during the 1950s as cooling systems proliferated. Just more than 1 million immigrants were added to the US populaton in the past year. Overall, per Axios, Western states have set the pace for 76 years, including Arizona, Idaho, Utah, North Dakota, and Alaska—but especially Nevada, which has been No. 1 36 times since 1946. (More population growth stories.)
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