This is the first in a series of pieces ranking Georgia’s 159 counties by various measures. I’m starting with population and will follow up with rankings for various economic, educational attainment and population health metrics, possibly among others. Eventually I’ll combine all those individual rankings into what I’ll call the TIGC Power Rankings.

One of my objectives with Trouble in God’s Country has been to demonstrate the size of the chasm between Georgia’s top- and bottom-performing counties. To do that, I work whenever possible with national datasets and show each county’s national rankings in addition to their state rankings. The list of Georgia counties below is sortable and searchable and — in addition to their state and national ranks — shows their U.S. Census Bureau population estimates as of July 1, 2023, and their total growth rates since July 1, 2020.

For the sake of this analysis, I’m working with Census Bureau estimates for the past three years. I played with using one-year numbers as well as five- and 10-year data and finally made the arbitrary decision that three-year numbers were a good compromise. I’ve found that single-year data can be kind of fluky (especially for smaller counties) and that a good bit can change over a 10-year period; by using the past three years’ population estimates,we’re looking at recent data and can see at least the beginnings of current trends.

Truth is, there’s not a lot of surprising news in Georgia’s population numbers, but there are a few trendlets worth noting:

• Georgia had counties in the top and bottom 10 for population growth rates for the past three years. Georgia had two counties in the top 10 and two more in the bottom 10: Long County, just inland from the Georgia coast and next door to Fort Stewart in neighboring Liberty County, ranked 2nd nationally with a 20.4 percent growth rate; Dawson County, in the north Atlanta exurbs, ranked 5th with a 17.3 percent growth rate. At the bottom of the pile, Telfair County, in south central Georgia and habitually at the bottom of just about every state list, ranked 3,137th out of the 3,143 counties with a population growth rate of -12.4 percent; Stewart County, in southwest Georgia, didn’t fare much better, losing 11.9 percent of its population and cominig in 3,135th on the national list.
• Georgia’s population growth is almost entirely north of the gnat line. According to Census Bureau estimates, Georgia’s population grew by just under 300,000 people between July 1, 2020, and July 1, 2023. Just over 88 percent of that growth took place in my 71-county TIGC North Georgia super region—basically everything from the gnat line north. Overall, 74 percent of the state’s population now lives in that 71-county region — 8.17 million of the state’s total 11.03 million residents.
• That north Georgia growth is, however, moving beyond central Metro Atlanta counties. Fulton, DeKalb and Clayton, all big population counties, posted basically flat population growth rates over the last three years. Gwinnett County, once the nation’s fastest-growing county, grew by an estimated 2.6 percent, less than a point a year, and Cobb had a 1.4 percent growth rate for the three yeaer period. The big growth was in the exuban counties like Forsyth (+7.9 percent) and Cherokee (+6.9) in addition to Dawson.
• Other than north Georgia, the only major region of the state that recorded significant growth was the coast. All told, the half-dozen coastal Georgia counties and seven more just inland from those posted at least some growth over the past three years. The massive Hyundai plant now being built in Bryan County is no doubt already spurring some population growth in the area and will fuel population and economic growth throughout that region and further inland.
• The gnat line cities were flat to down slightly. The three big cities across the middle of the state posted no growth over the three-year period. Columbus-Muscogee County lost 2.5 percent of its population; Macon-Bibb County dropped three-tenths of one percent, and Augusta-Richmond County lost half of a percentage point. I see this lack of population growth as part of a larger picture of distress in important hub cities, which anchor and serve their surrounding rural communities.
• Fifty-five of Georgia’s 159 counties lost population over the 2020-2023 period. As the map above shows, nearly all of them were small-population rural counties in middle and south Georgia. Southwest Georgia — aka SOWEGA — is suffering the biggest ongoing decline in population.

The population map above gives us a first snapshot of the Two Georgias. Other pictures will follow.