RENO -- Nevada's population is projected to grow by more than 74 percent over the next 20 years, to almost 4.4 million.
The fastest growth is expected in the Las Vegas area, which could add almost 1.6 million people in Clark and Nye counties, state Demographer Jeff Hardcastle said in a report made public Monday.
Advertisement
"Nevada will likely continue to outpace the national growth rate," Hardcastle said of the state, which now has a population of about 2.5 million people.
The U.S. Census Bureau put the number of U.S. citizens above 300 million for the first time on Tuesday.
Hardcastle said projections suggest the national population will grow by 19 percent between 2000 and 2020, while Nevada's population grows by almost four times that.
The Reno and Carson City area, including Churchill, Douglas, Lyon, Storey and Washoe counties, should absorb about 15 percent of the state's population growth, according to the state projections. The area would top 862,000 people by 2026.
Rural Nevada counties including Elko, Esmeralda, Eureka, Humboldt, Lander, Mineral, Pershing and White Pine could see no growth or lose people, depending on mining and economic factors, Hardcastle said.
Lincoln County's population is projected to increase by 52 percent, from fewer than 3,900 people to almost 6,000, with the development of a planned community just north of Mesquite.
The projections are used in preparing the state budget and for planning purposes. They were prepared using a Regional Economic Models Inc. model.
