After you’ve gone through the rigamarole in my earlier post, you will be able to see the actual numbers. Here are some quick hits from the 2012 city population estimates. Most of these are not radical changes from 2010 yet, of course.
- 2,435,611 Iowans live in incorporated places, an increase of about 30,000 from the 2010 census, and 79% of the overall state population in the 2012 estimate.
- Half of all Iowans who live in incorporated places live in the 20 largest cities (see bottom for specifics).
- Pella becomes the 39th city in the state with a population above 10,000. Those 39 have a combined population of just over 1.5 million.
- West Des Moines continues to make a serious run to supplant Ames as the eighth-largest city.
- Since April 1, 2010, 4500 people (the entire town of Hampton, itself the 89th-largest city in Iowa) moved to Ankeny.
- Tabor joins Keosauqua and Odebolt in falling under 1000.
- Every town in Tama County has lost at least a few people except Vining, which stayed at 50.
- The median-population city (half have more, half have less) is Martensdale, pop. 464.
- The 20 largest cities in the state have a combined population of 1,230,334 (50.5% of the city total), while the rest total 1,205,129. Move Ottumwa into the second group and it becomes the larger one.
- That means that 40% of the entire population of Iowa lives in 20 cities.