Californians are moving inland. Here are the new boom towns around Sacramento, Valley

More people now live in Roseville than Pasadena. Elk Grove has passed Rancho Cucamonga. And Sacramento is the second fastest-growing major city in the state.

New population figures released Friday by the state Department of Finance show Californians are continuing to move inland, fleeing the coast for the Central Valley, and reinforcing population booms in greater Sacramento and other parts of the Central Valley.

All told, the four-county metro Sacramento region gained about 26,000 residents during the year, reaching 2,374,008. That was a 1.1 percent growth rate — or more than five times the state average.

The state’s total population grew just 0.2 percent last year, reaching an estimated 39,782,870 on New Year’s Day, the department said. The slow growth rate is in line with the modest growth the state has experienced since the Great Recession.

The growth wasn’t uniform. Los Angeles County lost 0.3 percent of its population, marking its second straight year of population loss. The Bay Area grew but at a modest pace: San Francisco, for instance, added barely 6,000 people. San Jose added fewer than 2,000 people.

The city of Sacramento added just 5,700 people, but its 1.1 percent growth rate was second fastest among the ten largest cities in the state, behind Bakersfield.

Sacramento’s population stood at 510,931 on Jan. 1, 2019. The population for all of Sacramento County grew 0.9 percent, to 1,555,365.

Some of Sacramento’s suburbs were among the fastest-growing in the state. Among cities with at least 30,000 residents, Folsom’s population jumped 3.1 percent, to 81,610, second highest in California. Roseville was third fastest, at 2.7 percent, reaching a total of 145,163. Rocklin was No. 9, growing 2.2 percent to reach 70,350.

The Finance Department said Elk Grove has become California’s 27th largest city, with 176,154 residents. Roseville is the 40th largest. Modesto became the 17th largest city in the state, passing the Los Angeles suburb of Santa Clarita.

This story was originally published May 1, 2020 at 12:03 PM.