By Jeff Hudson
McNaughton Media
Yolo County had an estimated 219,808 residents as of July 1, and gained an estimated 1,044 people since July 1, 2019, according to a fresh batch of estimates compiled by the California Department of Finance, which released the new figures on Wednesday (Dec. 16). Measured in percentage terms, Yolo County grew by 0.55 percent.
Yolo County experienced 2,046 births and 1,312 deaths over the 1-year timeframe. Yolo also had 582 residents move away, but received 647 new residents during the same timeframe.
The addition of 1,044 new residents by Yolo County between July 1, 2019, and July 1, 2020, compares with the addition of 13,302 new residents in Sacramento County, which borders Yolo County on the east. In percentage terms, Sacramento County grew by 0.87 percent during the July 1, 2019 and July 1, 2020 timeframe, as compared to 0.55 percent for Yolo. By way of comparison, largely rural Colusa County (which borders Yolo County on the north) added just 44 new residents during the same timeframe, which works out to a growth rate of 0.06 percent.
During that same one-year timeframe, El Dorado County — which borders on Sacramento County on the west, and includes portions of Lake Tahoe on the east — tallied up as California’s fastest growing county in percentage terms, adding 3,210 new residents in the one-year timeframe, which makes for a 1.71 percent increase in El Dorado County’s population (roughly triple the percentage of population growth in Yolo). El Dorado County now has an estimated 190,400 residents.
At the other end of the spectrum, Butte County in Northern California — which was devastated by the massive 153,000-acre Camp Fire in 2018 — continues to lose residents. During the July to July timeframe, Butte County lost 8,115 residents — a decline of minus-3.82 percent.
A number of other largely rural Northern California counties experienced a smaller decline population — Alpine, Amador, Calaveras, Del Norte, Inyo, Lake, Humboldt, Mariposa, Mendocino, Modoc, Nevada, Plumas, Sierra, Siskiyou, Trinity and Tuolumne.
