Census Shows City's Population Rising

New York City's population is nudging upward, according to Census Bureau estimates released yesterday.

The Census numbers show that the five boroughs gained 23,960 people between July 2006 and July 2007, a rise of 0.29%. The growth is consistent with the city's population trends in recent years: The city gained about 40,000 people during the same period between 2005 and 2006. New York City's population now stands at a record high, 8.275 million people, according to the Census numbers.

Staten Island and Manhattan grew the fastest last year, at 0.6% and 0.5%, respectively.

Elsewhere in the state, upstate counties continued to lose people in 2007. Orange County, about an hour northwest of the city, experienced the fastest growth, a rate of 0.8%.

The Louisiana parish of St. Bernard was the nation's fastest-growing county, the census showed, thanks to a 42.9% population boom fueled by returning Hurricane Katrina refugees. The county was the nation's fastest losing county in the 2005-06 Census estimates.

Nine of the nation's 10 fastest-growing counties are in the South or West, according to the Census estimates. The population data is based on records of births, deaths, and migration.