Almost 9.5 million people call this area their home spurt, adding 640 residents per day, followed by New York, Riverside-San Bernardino, Calif. and Atlanta.
Just under 9.5 million people called Los Angeles-Long Beach home, tops in the nation. The New York metro area was next at 9.1 million, while Chicagoland had almost 8.2 million people.
Data come from the American Community Survey, which the Census Bureau is currently testing as an annual replacement for the census “long form” sent out once a decade.
The survey did not cover 30 other metropolitan areas with populations of 250,000 or more which were not part of the test sites.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on May 23, 2003. Read the original PDF.