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Downtown Huntsville (Challen Stephens/cstephens@al.com)

Huntsville and Baldwin County continue to expand rapidly, leading the growth across Alabama, while many of the state's older urban areas remain stagnant or shrinking.

Birmingham-Hoover, a sprawling metro across seven counties, grew slightly from 2014 to 2015 to reach nearly 1.15 million residents. But Mobile and Montgomery were nearly unchanged. Gadsden and Florence and other smaller metros lost people.

That's according to the latest Census estimates for changes in metro populations from July of 2014 to July of 2015.

Huntsville added more than 4,000 people over that one-year span, most in the state, according to the estimates released last week. That pushed Huntsville - the state's second largest metro area -- to just under 445,000 residents.

The combined towns of Baldwin County in south Alabama added almost as many new residents as Huntsville. But what marks about a one percent gain for Huntsville is a two percent climb for the recently designated Daphne-Fairhope-Foley metro. That's the fastest rate of growth in the state from 2014-2015.

The beachside metro, which includes all of Baldwin County, reached nearly 204,000 people.

Auburn-Opelika metro also added about 2,600 people, for the second fastest rate of growth in the state at 1.7 percent.

Meanwhile, a third of the state's metros lost population. Those were Gadsden, Florence-Muscle Shoals, Anniston-Oxford-Jacksonville and Decatur.

Alabama also contains a portion of the Columbus, Ga., metro area, which reversed course after years of rapid growth and lost population in 2015.

The latest figures largely continue recent trends in Alabama. Since 2010, Huntsville metro has added more than 25,000 residents, most in the state. Baldwin County added more than 20,000 over the last five years, secondmost in the state.

Birmingham-Hoover metro has maintained steady growth for the last five years, while Montgomery metro had been shrinking until this latest report.

The latest Census report also show that most of the increase in Huntsville and Baldwin County is explained by new residents moving in.

Meanwhile, Birmingham sees little net effect from new arrivals, but experienced overall growth thanks to far more births than deaths. Mobile overall lost almost 1,000 residents to people moving away from 2014 to 2015, but offset that loss with births. Same applies to Montgomery.

Metropolitan statistical areas are defined by the federal government based on economic ties and commutes. For example, the Huntsville metro area includes Madison and Limestone counties, while Birmingham-Hoover spans seven counties and metro Montgomery includes five counties. Mobile metro is Mobile County alone.

The U.S. Census Bureau has not yet released the 2015 estimates for individual cities.