COVINGTON, Ga. — Newton County's annual population growth slowed slightly in the latest U.S. Census Bureau estimates but still showed it was growing at almost double the rate this decade compared to last decade.

The county's population also grew at a faster rate than Georgia's statewide population in the same time period.

Newton County's population count in the recently released Census Bureau estimates was 117,621 in July 2022 — a 2% increase from the previous year's count of 115,318 in the same month of 2021.

The July 2021 count was a 2.5% increase from 112,843 in July 2020, according to Census Bureau estimates.

By comparison, Newton County's population grew by an average of 1.25% annually between the constitutionally-mandated census counts on April 1, 2010 (99,958) and April 1, 2020 (112,491).

Still, Newton County's rate of growth was far below Dawson and Lumpkin counties in north Georgia — which were among the 10 fastest growing counties in the nation, according to the Census Bureau estimates.

The populations of the two counties, which border each other north of Metro Atlanta, grew by 5.8% between July 2021 and July of last year — tied for fourth in the nation behind only Whitman County, Washington, the fastest-growing county; Kaufman County, Texas; and Sumter County, Florida.

Lumpkin County’s population actually went down from 33,487 to 32,890 between April 2020 – shortly after the pandemic struck Georgia – and July 2021 before rebounding to 34,796 last July.

Dawson County grew steadily from 26,796 in April 2020 to 28,475 in July 2021, and again to 30,138 in July of last year.

Lumpkin County’s experience of losing population only to gain it back mirrored what was happening across the country in much larger counties, said Christine Hartley, assistant division chief for estimates and projections in the Census Bureau’s population division.

“Some urban counties, such as Dallas and San Francisco, saw domestic outmigration at a slower pace between 2021 and 2022 compared to the prior year,” Hartley said. “Meanwhile, many counties with large universities saw their populations fully rebound this year as students returned.”

Fulton County remained the most populous in Georgia with nearly 1,074,634 residents as of last July. Fulton was followed by Gwinnett County with a population of 975,353; and Cobb County with a population of 771,952.

In all, 12 counties in Georgia had populations of 200,000 or more in July of last year — with nine of the 12 being in Metro Atlanta.

Neighboring Henry County had a population of 248,364.

The other largest Georgia counties as of July 2022 were DeKalb, 762,820; Chatham (Savannah), 301,107; Clayton, 296,564; Cherokee 281,278; Forsyth, 267,237; Hall, 212,692; Richmond (Augusta), 205,358; and Muscogee (Columbus), 202,616.