Southern California leads state’s 1st population gain since 2019

California posted its first population increase since the pandemic struck – a gain that was driven geographically from the south.

The California Department of Finance counted 67,100 more residents in the past year to 39.13 million as of Jan. 1. State demographers connected the growth, the first increase since 2019, to legal foreign immigration and “natural” growth – births vs. deaths.

California’s population dropped by an average 196,000 residents per year in 2020 to 2022. In the 2010s...