Population Estimates for Missouri and Across the U.S.

Updates

MCDC's population estimates data and applications are updated every year, usually in June or July, for the previous year. We process estimates for places, places-within-county, and MCDs and use these data to create the curmoests.xlsx (current Missouri estimates) file. This Excel file is our definitive Missouri population estimates document (see below).

Refer to the official Census Bureau Schedule of New Estimates page to see what and when to expect the rest of this year and next.

Data Applications

Population Estimates by Age provides population data at the state and county level for multiple predefined (five-year) age cohorts, data years, and sex / race / ethnicity groups. This application includes Excel data export.

State/County Annual Population Change shows annual population change from 2000 to the most current year, by state and county, including components of change (natural increase and net migration). This application includes bar charts.

Population Trends with Demographics show total and annualized population changes, by nation / state / county, for any desired date range from 1990 to current, including race and age categories. This application includes charts and Excel or PDF data export, and uses the detailed annual estimates from NCHS.

Our Best Estimates

• Access the Curmoests.xlsx Excel spreadsheet with the latest available population estimates for Missouri counties and places (incorporated cities). Updated every June with state, county and place estimates through July 1 of the previous year. You can also get earlier versions of this spreadsheet with post-2000 and 2010-2020 estimates for previous decades in the popests data directory.
• Access various reports based on data in the popests data directory. This page provides links to both the reports and to the underlying datasets used to generate them.
• Access state and county level population estimates with components of change, 2020 through most recent year of estimates, for the entire U.S. in our data archive using the Uexplore/Dexter application. The datasets are in the popests data directory. The four most pertinent data sets are mocom[YY], uscom[YY], mocomrgrns[YY] and uscomcbsas[YY] (where [YY] is the current vintage, e.g., mocom23 for 2020-2023 data). The first two consist of state- and county-level summaries, while the latter two are the result of our aggregating the data to get metro area and other county-based region summaries.
• The Applied Population Lab at the University of Wisconsin-Madison provides dynamic access to six decades of age-specific net migration data for all counties in the U.S. as well as ten years of estimates by age, race, and sex.
• For information regarding projections (estimating the future) of the population for Missouri and the U.S. see the Missouri population projections page. National projections (no longer state-level) are available from the Census Bureau. The Cooper Center at the University of Virginia offers national and state level projections with detail by age and sex. These have been generated using the results of the 2010 census and go through 2040.
• An alternative set of state and county level estimates by age (single years), race, sex and hispanic origin that use an alternate set of four ("bridged") race categories (for comparability with pre-2000 race categories before the advent of multi-race groups) were commissioned by the National Center for Health Statistics. The MCDC has downloaded and converted these estimates, which include both intercensal estimates for the decade of the 1990s as well as post-2000 estimates. Find out more about this collection at the NCHS bridged estimates readme page. Note that this data series was discontinued by NCHS in 2020.
• Uexplore/Dexter users can access city-level estimates for Missouri in the mosc23 dataset. Data for the entire US (including Missouri) are available in the ussc23 dataset. These data for 2023 were released in May of 2024.
• Housing unit estimates by county are available in the popests data directory. We put up two new files for each annual data cycle. You can access the latest data for all counties (plus states and the ushuests23, or you can get the Missouri subset of the same data in the mohuest2023 data set.
• See the Census Bureau's Population Estimates page for more reports and for access to downloadable data files. This is the ultimate and authoritative source for almost all population estimates in the United States. Nearly all of the data that appears on the MCDC site is based on data downloaded from this site.
• See our geographic reference reports page for links to an array of reports dealing with geographic subjects, some of which include recent population estimates.

Population estimates are produced as part of the Federal State Cooperative Program for Population Estimates (FSCPE) Program and released by the U.S. Census Bureau. State demographer Matt Hesser, Matt.Hesser@oa.mo.gov, of the Missouri Office of Administration, produces population estimates for Missouri in conjunction with the Census Bureau.