Atlanta, New Orleans, San Francisco areas gain people after correction of errors

Some of the most high-profile urban areas in the U.S. gained population on Tuesday. But it’s not because of a sudden flood of moving trucks into Atlanta, New Orleans and San Francisco.

Rather, the U.S. Census Bureau corrected errors made in the population and housing counts of urban areas that were officially released in December, according to a Federal Register notice published Tuesday.

The Atlanta urban area had its population adjusted to 5.1 million residents from 4.9 million residents. An additional 100,853 residents living in more than 37,000 homes had been mistakenly assigned to the Gainesville, Georgia, urban area.

The population of the New Orleans urban area grew to 963,212 residents from 914,531. The additional 48,681 residents had been mistakenly assigned to the Laplace-Lutcher-Gramercy, Louisiana, urban area, which was supposed to be deleted following a merger with the New Orleans urban area.

The San Francisco-Oakland urban area’s population was corrected to 3.5 million residents from 3.2 million. The addition of nearly a quarter million residents, as well as more than 100,000 homes, came from the San Rafael-Novato, California, urban area, which had been counted separately by accident when it actually should have been deleted and merged with the San Francisco-Oakland urban area.

After every once-a-decade census, the Census Bureau publishes a list of urban areas and their population and housing counts. The most recent one was released in December.

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