Virginia Population 1820 to 2020
I moved from Fairfax County (2020 population 1,150,292) to Fauquier County (72,964) to escape the congestion and gridlock of Virginia’s most populous county. However, the demographics of 1820 paint a different picture entirely. Back then, Fauquier boasted the largest population in Virginia, 34,270, while Fairfax’s 16,077 was far down the list at thirty-eighth.
Two centuries later the relative population size of the two counties has reversed. Fauquier’s population has increased just 113 percent and has been bypassed and dwarfed in size by Fairfax’s 7,054 percent growth, driven by the expansion of the Washington, DC suburbs since World War II.
How have the populations of Virginia’s other counties and cities changed between 1820 and 2020?