Census Bureau: St. Cloud Metro Grows One Percent From 2014-2015

ST. CLOUD - According to numbers from the U.S. Census Bureau, the St. Cloud metro area grew by about one percent from July 2014 to July 2015.

Overall, the St. Cloud metro grew from 192,579 to 194,418 people (1839 people).

Just under 600 of those people moved into the area. State demographer Susan Brower says roughly half of those gains came from international migration, while the other half were from domestic migration.

"Domestic migration includes anyone who moved from another location in the U.S. They may be a foreign born person, they may be U.S. born. It may also include young people who moved into the area to go to school."

However, the majority of the population growth came from a spike of more babies being born. The number of births in the area outpaced the number of deaths by over 1,300 people.

"Births have been fairly steady in the St. Cloud area. They've gone up in recent years and that's part of a statewide trend. We saw births really drop off during the great recession," Brower says.

Brower adds that the St. Cloud metro had one of the highest growth rates compared to other metro areas in the state in this time period.

For the Twin Cities, the Census Bureau estimates their metro population is growing about six times faster than the rest of the state. The seven counties in the area have hit the 3 million mark for the first time.

About 67 percent of the Twin cities area growth has come from births exceeding deaths, while the rest came from international arrivals.

-This story was written with information from the Associated Press-