The fastest growing counties in Georgia since 2010 include some places less familiar to metro Atlantans, including Bryan County west of Savannah and Columbia County near Augusta.
Bryan County topped the list by percentage growth, adding 14,507 people, an increase of 48%. It was ahead of Forsyth County in metro Atlanta, which grew 43% to 251,283 residents and was one of the fastest growing large counties in the nation, according to Cook Political Report’s Dave Wasserman.
Columbia County grew 26%.
The 2020 Census, the official headcout taken every 10 years, also points to continued falling populations in rural Georgia, according to an analysis by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
A large swath of southwest Georgia is home to counties with the largest percentage decrease in population since 2010. Dooly County, for example, lost one-fourth of its population, falling to 11,208 residents from 14,912 in 2010, a decrease of 24.9%, the Census Bureau reported. Dooly, whose county seat is Vienna, is located along I-75 between Perry and Cordele.
Taliaferro County, which straddles I-20 in east Georgia, remained the smallest county in the state. Its census of 1,559 residents fell 9% since 2010.
Outside of metro Atlanta, the counties with the higher growth rates tend to be smaller. More than 50% of the population growth in Georgia was in the metro Atlanta counties of Gwinnett, Fulton, Cobb, Forsyth and DeKalb counties, the AJC found.
Map: Georgia population change by county 2010-2020
The fastest growing counties in Georgia since 2010
- Bryan County, 44,738, 48%
- Forsyth County, 251,283, 43.2%
- Oconee County, 41,799, 27.4%
- Columbia County, 156,010, 25.8%
- Jackson County, 75,907, 25.5%
- Cherokee County, 266,620, 24.4%
- Effingham County, 64,769, 24%
- Barrow County, 83,505, 20.4%
- Dawson County, 26,798, 20%
- Towns County 12,493, 19.3%
The smallest Georgia counties by population in 2020
Showing population and percent change from 2010.
- Taliaferro, 1,559 residents, -9%
- Quitman, 2,235, -11.1%
- Webster County 2,348, -16.1%
- Clay County 2,848, -10.5%
- Baker County 2,876, -16.7%
- Glascock County 2,884, -6.4%
- Echols County 3,697, -8.4%
- Schley County 4,547, -9.2%
- Warren County 5,215, -10.6%
- Stewart County 5,314, -12.3%
Georgia’s largest counties (2020 Census)
- Fulton County: 1,066,710
- Gwinnett County: 957,062
- Cobb County: 766,149
- DeKalb County: 764,382
- Clayton County: 297,595
- Chatham County: 295,291
- Cherokee County: 266,620
- Forsyth County: 251,283
- Henry County: 240,712
- Muscogee County, 206,922
Source: US Census Bureau, 2020 Decennial Census
Brian O’Shea contributed to this article.
