As of 2023 Tooele County population up 12.8% from 2020 Census

Tim Gillie

Tooele County is the fastest-growing county in Utah since the 2020 US Census, according to the annual population estimates prepared by the US Census Bureau.

The 2020 census recorded the population of Tooele County at 72,709 people. The Census Bureau population estimate for Tooele County as of July 1, 2023 was 82,051, or 12.8% growth, making Tooele County the fastest-growing county by percent of population with 9,342 more residents since the 2020 census.

Washington and Iron County came in second and third place with a growth rate of 12.3% and 12.1%, respectively. Salt Lake County’s three-year growth of 583 people barely moved the needle on growth with a 0.049% growth rate, rounded to 0% by the Census Bureau report.

San Juan was the only county in Utah with a loss since the 2020 census, with an estimated 1.1% drop in residents since the census.

Census Bureau data also offered a glimpse into where all the people are coming from. Tooele County’s growth origins differed from the state norm.

The state average shows “natural change”—births minus deaths—as the leading origins of growth, with net natural change accounting for 53.7% of the state’s population growth since the 2020 census. In Tooele County, net natural change, at 20.3%, takes a back seat to total migration—people moving from other areas—of 80.3% of the growth since the 2020 Census.

The 2023 1-year American Community Survey, a representative sampling survey that is used to estimate population and other demographic information for the one-year period of 2023, gives an idea of where the people that moved to Tooele County in 2023 came from.

Out of the estimated population of 80,981 in Tooele County for 2023, 76,596 are living in the same house they lived in one year ago. Meaning 94.5% of the county’s population didn’t move anywhere in 2023. A total of 1,063 people moved but stayed in Tooele County for 1.3% of the 2023 population.

The report shows 2,451 people that moved to Tooele County during 2023 came from other counties in Utah. That’s 3.0% of the 2023 population. There were 720 people that were reported to have moved to Tooele County from other states in 2023, for 0.89% of the 2023 population. 151 people moved to Tooele County from outside the United States in 2023, or 0.19% of the total 2023 population.

Nationwide, Tooele County’s 12.8% growth rate since the 2020 Census placed it as the 37th fastest growing county in the U.S. since the 2020 census. The fastest-growing county in the U.S. since the census was Kaufman County, Texas, which added 40,383 people to its 2020 census population of 145,307 for a 27.8% growth rate. A total of 15 of the 36 counties between Tooele County and the number one county in growth were from Texas.

Washington County, the next fastest-growing county in Utah after Tooele County with 12.3% growth, placed 48th nationwide. The nationwide average for growth from the April 2020 Census was 1.0%.

The 2023 American Community Survey listed a total of 3,149 counties in the U.S. At the bottom of the growth list was Loving County, Texas, which lost 20 of its 63 residents since the 2020 census, for a 31.7% loss in 2023.

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