Survey figures compiled by the Census Bureau provide a glimpse of where these residents are moving to and from. The migration estimates are now readily available after the agency launched its Census Flows Mapper tool on Tuesday, allowing researchers to query migration data for each county.
Governing also previously reported on state to state migration patterns (view an interactive map).
Some of the most populous California counties were shown to have the top number of movers between counties, as compiled from survey data:
County of Residence 1 Year Ago | Current County | Annual Movers | Margin of Error |
---|---|---|---|
Los Angeles, CA | San Bernardino, CA | 44,020 | +/- 2,509 |
Los Angeles, CA | Orange, CA | 40,643 | +/- 2,140 |
Los Angeles, CA | Riverside, CA | 30,443 | +/- 2,486 |
Orange, CA | Los Angeles, CA | 28,450 | +/- 2,015 |
Miami-Dade, FL | Broward, FL | 25,246 | +/- 2,121 |
San Bernardino, CA | Riverside, CA | 23,942 | +/- 2,017 |
Orange, CA | Riverside, CA | 23,663 | +/- 2,325 |
Maricopa, AZ | Pinal, AZ | 21,969 | +/- 1,659 |
Wayne, MI | Oakland, MI | 21,919 | +/- 1,795 |
Cook, IL | DuPage, IL | 21,835 | +/- 1,849 |
San Bernardino, CA | Los Angeles, CA | 20,921 | +/- 1,592 |
Most often, people move relatively short distances. Separate census estimates indicated about 64 percent of moves in 2012 occurred within the same county.
By analyzing a larger sample over five years, the agency is able to compute estimates for all counties. But even with five years of data, some smaller counties still have high margins of error.
If you’re interested in learning more about how these figures were compiled, please refer to the Census Bureau’s documentation.