Montgomery Reaches 1 Million Population Mark

People walking down the sidewalk at Bethesda RowMontgomery County has surpassed the 1 million population mark, according to U.S. Census numbers released Thursday.

The Montgomery County Planning Department announced the news in a press release today. The data shows the state’s largest jurisdiction since 1989 reached a population of 1,004,709 last July thanks to a population burst of 13,000 people between July 2011 and July 2012.

Most of that increase came from births. In that period, 13,097 births exceeded 5,467 deaths, meaning a net increase of more than 7,600 people. The rest of the increase that put Montgomery over the 1 million mark comes from 8,700 people moving into the county. Data shows 3,100 people moved out.

The population increase, though not quite at the pace of growth of the previous three years, of course means more pressure on the Planning Department, which monitors and studies the county’s infrastructure as well as making land use determinations.

“We’ve planned for our population to increase,” acting planning director Rose Krasnow said in the release. “Years ago, we set up tools to preserve our agricultural land and maintain our single-family neighborhoods. More recently we have created many mixed-use, multi-family housing opportunities in our downtowns or near Metro.”

On a very local level, the growth has meant a surging elementary school-aged population, which has MCPS planning an addition to Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School and some residents wary of the county’s methods for gauging population.

The D.C. region reached a population of 5.8 million with the addition of close to 90,000 people, according to the data.

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