The US Census Bureau released initial data for the state of Missouri on Feb. 24. Although the state added population, it did not grow fast enough to retain all of its US House seats. But Columbia and Boone County continued to be one of the fastest growing metro areas of the state.
Columbia’s population grew by 23,969 to 108,500 from 2000 to 2010, a 28.4 percent increase. Columbia retained its spot as the fifth largest city in Missouri, and among those cities, it posted the largest growth percentage. Out of the state’s 20 largest cities, it had the third highest rate of growth.
Boone County remains the seventh largest county in the state and added 27,188 people during the past decade for a total of 162,642 people. That translates into population growth of 20.1 percent, which ranks Boone County eighth in terms of the rate of population growth during the past decade.
Below is a breakdown of some of the demographic characteristics released by the Census thus far.

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