After a year of significant population loss, D.C.’s population recovered slightly this year, according to new numbers from the U.S. Census Bureau.

The new census estimates showed that D.C. gained about 3,000 residents last year — a population increase of about 0.5%.

The Census Bureau estimates D.C.’s population at 671,803 for 2022, compared to 668,791 in 2021. D.C.’s population came in greater than two states — Vermont and Wyoming, which have an estimated 647,064 and 581,381 residents, respectively.

The change in D.C.’s population mirrored national trends, as the Census Bureau found the total U.S. population increased by 0.4% over the past year.

“There was a sizeable uptick in population growth last year compared to the prior year’s historically low increase,” Kristie Wilder, a demographer at the Census Bureau, said in a press release. Wilder attributes the increase to “a rebound in net international migration, coupled with the largest year-over-year increase in total births since 2007.”

Neighboring Virginia also saw some population growth over the past year, with an increase by about 0.3%. That brought the state to an estimated total of 8,683,619 residents — an increase of 26,254 residents from the previous year. And in Maryland, the population fell slightly, by just under 0.2%. The state lost about 10,000 residents and had an estimated 2022 population of 6,164,660.

The increase in D.C.’s population comes after two consecutive years in which the city’s population decreased. D.C. was far from alone in those years: Between 2020 and 2021, localities across the nation either lost population or grew more slowly than before — a trend the Census Bureau attributed to decreased migration to the U.S., lower fertility rates, and the fact that so many people in the U.S. died from COVID-19.

According to an analysis by economist Yesim Sayin Taylor with the D.C. Policy Center, the District’s most significant population loss came in 2020, when the city had an estimated net population loss of about 18,000 people. That loss was driven largely by people moving out of the city.

https://twitter.com/yesimsy/status/1606292202375680000

D.C. continued to lose residents in 2021 and 2022, but that trend slowed significantly. The increase in residents in 2022 was driven largely by what’s referred to as “natural change,” which is the difference between the number of new residents who were born and the number of residents who died. Additionally, international migration into the District fueled a small portion of the city’s increase in residents.

The slowdown in D.C.’s population growth came after a decade where new residents flocked to the District and the city’s population increased by nearly 15%. The increase in population came with demographic changes, including a significant decline in the city’s percentage of Black residents, many of whom have been displaced from the city as it has become more unaffordable. Overall, the 2020 census numbers showed that in D.C., Maryland, and Virginia, the population grew by 13% overall during the previous decade — which outpaced the national average population growth of 7.4%. Still, the jump in the D.C. region’s population represented the smallest local population growth of any decade since the 1970s.