New estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau say that Portland's growth cooled a bit from 2015 to 2016, but continued its blistering post-Great Recession pace of more than 1 percent a year.
The census released its 2016 estimates on Thursday. The bureau said the population of Portland proper on July 1, 2016, was 639,863. That's a 9,242-person increase from July 2015, and more than 56,000 greater than the headcount in the 2010 Census.
About 37.5 percent of the population growth in the tri-county area this decade has been in Portland proper, the bureau estimates.
Overall, Portland is the 30th largest city in the United States; the bureau estimates that greater Portland is the country's 25th-largest metropolitan area.
Elsewhere in the region, Hillsboro continued to gain residents at a rapid pace, adding an estimated 2,421 new residents from 2015 to 2016, the Census Bureau estimated. That brought its growth in the decade to 13,553 new residents, and its total population above 105,000.
Gresham, Beaverton and Happy Valley were all estimated to add more than 1,000 new residents from 2015-16. Vancouver gained an estimated 2,363 residents, to a population of 174,826.
Of the 68 cities and townships in the country with more than 300,000 residents, Portland's 1.47 percent growth rate was ranked 17th from 2015-16. Seattle continued to lead the country in population growth among large cities, with nearly 21,000 new residents moving to the Emerald City. Miami, Fort Worth, Tampa, Colorado Springs, Atlanta and Phoenix all saw population growth above 2 percent.
"Tri-County balance" includes all areas of Clackamas, Multnomah and Washington counties outside of the cities listed above – unincorporated areas, like Aloha and Oak Grove, rural areas outside the UGB, and cities outside the UGB like Canby, Molalla and North Plains