Washington state population tops 7 million

OLYMPIA – More people moved to Washington in the past year, helping to push the state’s population above 7 million, according to estimates released Thursday by the Office of Financial Management.

An estimated 7,061,400 people lived in the Evergreen State as of April 2015. The state gained about 93,200 people between 2014 and 2015. The 1.34 percent increase is the largest annual bump since 2008.

More than three-fourths of the population boom was concentrated in the state’s five largest counties, Clark, King, Pierce, Snohomish and Spokane, where economic opportunities continue to draw new residents.

“It’s a decent amount of growth,” said Mike Mohrman, a senior forecast analyst with OFM. “It’s concentrated in a few counties, along Interstate 5 and Spokane.”

In the last five years, the growth in Spokane County was led by Airway Heights. It grew by 37 percent since 2010, making it the state’s fourth fastest-growing city as measured by percentage of growth.

Airway Heights Mayor Patrick Rushing attributed the growth to Northern Quest Casino, the Kalispel Tribe’s casino which opened in 2000.

He said with the possibility of the Spokane Tribe opening a second casino in Airway Heights, population of the city could increase to 20,000 in the next 10 to 15 years with the influx of jobs from that project.

“When Northern Quest came in, jobs started being created,” he said.

Seattle is seeing a tremendous amount of growth, accounting for more than one-fourth of the state’s population increase, Mohrman said. The city topped the list of booming cities with the largest gain in numbers, with 21,900 moving into the city to boost its estimated population to about 662,400. It was followed by Vancouver, Marysville, Kent, Redmond, Tacoma, Olympia, Renton, Spokane Valley and Bremerton.

As for counties, Snohomish and Clark led the way with the largest growth rate, increasing by more than 2 percent. They were followed by King, Whitman and Kittitas counties. All but two counties in the state expanded, while Wahkiakum and Grays Harbor counties lost residents between 2014 and 2015.