Hamilton County added 4,134 residents last year to grow the county’s population by nearly 1.2 percent, according to U.S. Bureau of Census estimates released today.
Hamilton County grew nearly 25 percent faster than Tennessee as a whole during 2016 as urban counties in the state continued to grow at a faster pace than rural counties. But the fastest growing counties in Tennessee were in metropolitan Nashville, which continued to grow at the fastest pace among metro areas of Tennessee.
The new yearly census estimates pegged Tennessee’s 2016 population at 6.65 million, which was 0.9 percent more than in 2015. The state ranks 16th in the nation in terms of percentage growth.
Metropolitan Chattanooga, which includes Hamilton, Marion and Sequatchie counties in Tennessee and Catoosa, Dade and Walker counties in Georgia, grew by 0.7 percent in 2016 to 551,632.
The 10 fastest-growing counties in Tennessee were Williamson, Rutherford, Wilson, Trousdale, Maury, Sumner, Macon, Dickson, Lawrence and Putnam. All 10 counties are either in metro Nashville or bordering counties.