Capitol Calling

                           

A woman on stilts entertains the masses at the Missouri State Fair. Pettis County - the home of the fair - grew by 4 percent last decade.

I just got a spreadsheet of the state’s population by county. You can view the spreadsheet here, but here are some highlights:

- St. Louis County remains Missouri’s most populous county with 998,954 people. But that number is down 1.71 percent. Jackson County came in second place with 674,158, a 2.94 percent increase.

- St. Charles County experienced downright explosive growth, moving ahead of St. Louis City as the third most populous county in the state. The county grew by 26.98 percent.

- As mentioned in the previous post, St. Louis City’s population decline by 8.3 percent. The population of my hometown is 319,294.

- Kansas City suburban areas such as Clay County, Cass County and Platte County grew by at least 20 percent. Jefferson County grew by 10.42 percent.

- My old stomping ground of Boone County grew 20.07 percent. Cole County grew by 6.43 percent.

- Southwest Missouri experienced a population boom of sorts. The fastest growing county in the state was Christian County, which ballooned by 42.62 percent. Greene County grew by 14.47 percent, Jasper County’s population went up by 12.15 percent and Taney County grew by 30.15 percent.

- The population of Atchison County - home of U.S. Rep. Sam Graves, R-Tarkio - declined 11.59 percent, the most out of any Missouri county. Worth County - with 2,171 residents - remains Missouri’s least populous county.

By the way, state Rep. John Diehl’s office released the total population by congressional districts. Diehl, R-Town and Country, is the chair of the House committee on redistricting:

District 1 - 587,069

District 2 - 706,622

District 3 - 625,251

District 4 - 679,375

District 5 - 633,887

District 6 - 693,974

District 7 - 721,754

District 8 - 656,894

District 9 - 684,101

Diehl’s office says that congressional districts will now have 748,615 people.