Census: Population down for county

Published 1:38 pm Wednesday, August 25, 2021

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According to the United States Census Bureau, the 2020 Census shows Covington County and Andalusia saw a decline in population numbers since the last census in 2010.

According to the USCB report, Covington County ranked 32nd out of the state’s 67 counties with a population of 37,570. That number is down .5 percent from the 2010 Census when the county had a population of 37,765.

Andalusia was ranked 79th among Alabama cities with a population of 8,805 people. That number reflects a decrease of 2.3 percent from the 2010 census when the population was reported to be 9,015.

The City of Opp ranked 97th among cities with a 1.7 percent increase. According to the report, Opp had 6,771 people in 2020 compared to 6,659 in 2010. Florala went down in population from 1,980 to 1,923, a decrease of 2.9 percent. The town of Carolina went down 3.7 percent from 297 to 286. The town of Red Level only had 432 people compared to 487 in 2010, a decrease of 11.3 percent. The town of Lockhart only had 445 people in 2020 compared to 516 in 2010, a decrease of 13.8 percent.

Of the surrounding counties, only Coffee County saw an increase in population to 53,465. That number went up 7 percent from 2010, which previously had Coffee at 49,948 people. Geneva County saw a slight decrease of .5 percent and had 26,659 people compared to 26,790 in 2010. Escambia County (36,757) previously had 38,319 people, and Crenshaw County (13,194) was down from 13,906. Butler County and Conecuh County each took a hard hit in the latest report. Butler had a population of 20,947 in 2010 but only 19,051 in 2020. Conecuh saw its population decrease from 13,228 in 2010 to 11,597 in 2020.

The latest census shows that Alabama is home to roughly 5.02 million people, making it the 24th most populous state. Alabama grew by 5.1 percent since 2010, enough to keep all seven congressional seats. Huntsville overtook Birmingham as the state’s most populous city with 215,000 people, a growth of nearly 35,000 or around 19 percent since the last census ran in 2010.