It’s been a rough few years for Boulder County, which experienced one of the greatest population declines in Colorado since 2020. New data had the State Demography Office revising past estimates, which were shared Friday at the annual State Demography Summit. 

“The Front Range region had much of the population growth. But not every county in the Front Range. Denver, Jefferson County and Boulder County had population losses during this two-year period,” Nancy Gedeon, a demographer in the state’s Demography Office, said during the event.

Boulder’s population is down 1.1% from where it was in 2020 and Gedeon attributed the change to residents (namely college students) scattering during the pandemic and the Marshall fire. Jefferson County had the highest decline in the Front Range, down 1.2%, and that was due to an older population with more deaths. 

“We always revise backwards,” Gedeon said. “And the data that we got from the U.S. census on migration did have some significant changes in their data for 2020 and 2021. So much so that the estimate that we provided last year for the state for July of 2021 has now been revised down by 3,600 people.”

But people living in group quarters are returning, so future revisions could see a change for Boulder County. What’s Working will explore more of the revised demographic data in future columns.

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