Florida has surpassed New York as the third most populous state in the United States, a milestone that solidifies the Sun Belt’s growing dominance and continues a powerful demographic trend that has shaped much of the nation’s population growth for more than 60 years.

Now, the nation’s three largest states are in the South and West — California (38.8 million), Texas (27 million) and Florida (19.9 million) — according to July 1, 2014 population estimate released Tuesday by the Census Bureau.

In an ironic twist, Florida has New York partly to thank for its steady growth. More people move to Florida from New York than from any other state.

It’s good news for the Sunshine State, which suffered net migration loss from 2007 to 2009 at the peak of the Great Recession — when more people left the state than moved in.

“I don’t think rankings per se mean a lot,” said Stanley Smith, a demographer in the Bureau of Economic and Business Research at the University of Florida. “But I think it’s a very important signal. It’s a milestone for Florida in that it reflects many years of rapid growth.”

One hundred years ago, Florida was the smallest state in the South.

“This puts an exclamation point on the Sun Belt growth of the last half century,” said William Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution and author of the book “Diversity Explosion.”