Population change of 300 US cities between 2020 and 2024

By César Heredia, data journalist

It's no doubt that COVID-19 took a toll on the world population. An estimated seven million people lost their lives because of the pandemic.

And the United States did not escape from that reality.

Although it can not be assured that all deaths were provoked by COVID-19, it has been one of the main reasons of deceases in the US since 2020.

For example, New York City has recorded a population loss of more than 600 thousand people between 2020 and 2024, according to data from 300 selected cities in the United States. New York State has registered 83,374 deaths because of covid, Worldmeters states.

Apart from NYC, the population of the other 21 cities from 16 states has declined by more than 10K. Five of those are in California.

However, by rate, San Francisco (CA) was the city that lost the highest percent of population in the period above (-0.09%), whiie the highest increase was New Braunfels (TX), located in Comal county. Their inhabitants rose by 91,643 to 117,396, a growth of 0.28%.

Ninety-five towns from 29 US states have seen their population diminish between 1K and 9K. Twenty-nine out of these 95 cities belong to California. No other state registered more than seven cities with such losses.

The population of 38 out of the 300 selected cities changed between -1,000 and 1,000 since 2020. Among them are Pittsburgh (PA), Dallas and border-city El Paso (TX), Jersey City (NJ), and five Californian cities.

Other 98 areas across 29 selected US states expanded from 1,000 to 10,000 people in four years. 37.9% of them are in Texas or California, including Arlington (TX), Sacramento, and San Diego (CA).

In the meantime, the population of 47 cities from 16 states climbed by ten or more thousand between 2020 and 2024. 11 Texan cities entered this group. San Antonio recorded the largest increase (+74K) of the 300 analyzed in this report.

Most and least populated cities

According to data, 38 of the 300 selected cities recorded a population greater than 500,000 people in 2024, with New York City leading the way. Los Angeles and Chicago complete the podium, despite losing around 100K each.

Fifty-five towns from California, 34 from Texas, and 23 from Florida registered less than 500 thousand people this year, as reported by the US Cities dataset found on Kaggle.

"Full house"

It is no surprise that New York City has the highest population per square mile among the 300 selected US cities for this report. Indeed, 50% of the 10 most dense areas on the list belong to the Northeastern zone. Jersey City, Paterson, and Newark (2nd, 3rd and 9th spot), Cambridge, and Boston (4th and 7th) make the top ten.

Thirty-eight towns from California and Texas (19 each) have a population density between 2,500 and 4,000 people per square mile.

Despite being the most populated city in Alaska, Anchorage gathers only 167 people per square mile, the least dense of the entire list. Apart from this town, three cities from Georgia, two in Arizona, and one in Virginia and Oklahoma have a density of less than 1000 people per square mile.

The complete list of 300 cities in the United States used for this report is below. Remember that you can filter by population in 2020 and 2024, city, state, population change in the mentioned period, density, and area in square miles.