We've known that most rural areas lost population in the last decade, but a new analysis of Census data found that rural America overall lost population for the first time in history, and the trend could continue, according to new analysis of 2020 census data by the University of New Hampshire's Carsey School of Public Policy. But some rural areas are gaining population, mostly from adult people of color, according to an analysis by The Daily Yonder.

Nonmetropolitan counties lost 289,000 residents out of about 46 million from 2010 to 2020, Kenneth Johnson reports for the Carsey School. In the previous decade, rural America gained 1.5 million new residents and in the 1990s grew by nearly 3.4 million.

"If rural outmigration is ongoing, and deaths continue to exceed births in many rural areas due to low fertility and higher mortality among the aging rural population, then population losses are likely to continue in much of rural America," Johnson reports.

Read the full article about rural population growth by Heather Chapman at The Rural Blog.