You can find a link to the full report (and a webi­nar pre­sen­ta­tion of its find­ings) below, but first here’s a clos­er look at the numbers.

Accord­ing to the report, rur­al coun­ties with economies based on tourism and recre­ation main­tained high­er-than-aver­age pop­u­la­tion growth rates dur­ing 2010 – 16. How­ev­er, over that same five year peri­od, 1,351 rur­al coun­ties lost pop­u­la­tion — total­ing close to 800,000 peo­ple. In addi­tion to an aging pop­u­la­tion, fac­tors behind this decline include:

Rur­al Amer­i­ca at a Glance, 2017 Edi­tion—the U.S. Depart­ment of Agriculture’s annu­al report on rur­al eco­nom­ic and pop­u­la­tion trends in the nation’s ​“non­metro” areas — didn’t include too many sur­pris­es, but did find wide region­al vari­a­tion. It also con­firmed (as we’ve report­ed) that rur­al Amer­i­ca’s over­all pop­u­la­tion is in fact shrink­ing for the first time on record.

Over­all rur­al pop­u­la­tion loss masks region­al variation

The num­ber of peo­ple liv­ing in rur­al (non­metro) coun­ties declined by near­ly 200,000 between 2010 and 2016, the first record­ed peri­od of rur­al pop­u­la­tion decline. Pop­u­la­tion loss for rur­al Amer­i­ca as a whole has aver­aged just ‑0.07 per­cent per year in that span, but this loss has not been even­ly dis­trib­uted across all rur­al counties.

The num­ber of non­metro coun­ties los­ing pop­u­la­tion reached an his­toric high of 1,351 dur­ing 2010 – 16, with a com­bined pop­u­la­tion loss of just under 790,000. Long-term pop­u­la­tion loss con­tin­ued in coun­ties depen­dent on agri­cul­ture, in the Great Plains, Mid­west and south­ern Coastal Plains. New areas of pop­u­la­tion loss emerged through­out the east­ern Unit­ed States, espe­cial­ly in man­u­fac­tur­ing-depen­dent regions.

The 487 rur­al coun­ties with pos­i­tive but below-aver­age growth (less than the U.S. pop­u­la­tion growth rate of 5 per­cent) togeth­er added 281,000 peo­ple over 2010 – 16. Many are locat­ed in rur­al parts of the Moun­tain West, south­ern Appalachia, and oth­er scenic areas where pop­u­la­tion growth slowed con­sid­er­ably for the first time in decades. Coun­ties iden­ti­fied by ERS as hav­ing recre­ation-based economies grew by 4.6 per­cent dur­ing 2002-08 but only by 1.2 per­cent dur­ing 2010 – 16.

Most non­metro pop­u­la­tion growth was con­cen­trat­ed in just 138 coun­ties that grew by 5 per­cent or more dur­ing 2010 – 16, adding 317,000 peo­ple. Work­ers attract­ed to the oil and gas boom caused rapid growth in the north­ern Great Plains, west­ern Texas/​southeastern New Mex­i­co, and south Texas. How­ev­er, pro­duc­tion cut­backs slowed pop­u­la­tion growth in these regions dur­ing 2015 – 16.

Most oth­er high-growth coun­ties dur­ing 2010 – 16 were coun­ties in scenic areas that main­tained high­er-than-aver­age growth despite the over­all pop­u­la­tion slow­down in these types of areas. This first-ever peri­od of over­all non­metro pop­u­la­tion loss may be short-lived. The cycli­cal eco­nom­ic down­turn that began in 2007 bot­tomed out in 2012, and increas­ing pop­u­la­tion growth since 2012 coin­cides with renewed non­metro employ­ment growth. The lat­est pop­u­la­tion esti­mates show signs of a pop­u­la­tion recov­ery in many parts of rur­al Amer­i­ca in 2015 – 16, espe­cial­ly in tourism and recre­ation destinations.

The uploader mis­pelled ​“edi­tion” in the title, but there’s some good data in here pre­sent­ed by John Cro­mar­tie, an author of the report. (Video: USDA / YouTube)

To check out Rur­al Amer­i­ca at a Glance, 2017 Edi­tion in its entire­ty, click here.