Pacific County sees mild population growth

Published 1:38 pm Monday, August 5, 2024

Pacific County experienced steady if modest population growth from 2023 to 2024, according to annual state data released earlier this summer.

The Washington State Office of Financial Management (OFM) estimated that the county’s population stood at 23,950 as of April 1, an increase of 175 people — or 0.7% — from the previous spring.

The state data puts Pacific County on the cusp of eclipsing 24,000 in population, although separate figures released by the U.S. Census Bureau earlier this year estimated that the county’s population eclipsed that milestone back in 2022. The federal agency’s most recent projections, for 2023, pegged the county’s population at 24,200.

Since the 2020 Census, the OFM data shows that the county’s population has grown by 2.5%, which ranks about 30th out of Washington’s 39 counties. For year-over-year growth from 2023-24, the county ranked 25th.

These projections come after the census bureau pegged Pacific County as having the highest percentage increase in population in the state over the 10-year period from 2013-22.

While their topline population estimates differ, both OFM and the bureau have found that the county’s growth has slowed in the post-pandemic years. From 2021-2022, the state found that Pacific County’s population grew by 0.7%, while the federal agency had the county growing by 0.6%. From 2022-23, OFM projected that the county again grew by 0.7%, while the bureau estimated it grew by 0.4%.

The state’s estimates had consistently come in below the census bureau’s projections in recent years, particularly in the late 2010s. The bureau uses its data to determine where hundreds of billions of federal dollars are allocated to communities throughout the country each year.

The state estimates that much of the population growth in the county in the 2020s has come in its unincorporated communities, rather than in the cities of Long Beach, Ilwaco, Raymond and South Bend. Since the 2020 Census, Pacific County’s unincorporated population has grown by 422, up to 16,185, while the population of the four cities has grown by 163, to 7,765.

Overall, the county ranks 28th in the state by population, ahead of 29th-ranked Klickitat County by about 500 people. Jefferson County north of us on the Olympic Peninsula sits ahead of Pacific County, ranked 27th, but is home to nearly 9,000 more people.