Los Angeles is a city that captures the imagination like no other, drawing tens of thousands of Americans here every year to plant their flag.

The metro area population grew 0.7 percent from 2013 to 2014, according to the latest census figures. That means the population grew by 86,371 people, reaching a total population of 13.26 million.

While some of the growth can be attributed to birth rates and immigration, the big chunk of new residents are movers from within California and across the U.S.

So where are all those people coming from?

Another census study, conducted over five years from 2009-2013, gives us a pretty good idea of all the different places new Angelenos are coming from.

Los Angeles County, attracted 216,018 domestic movers during the five-year span of time. More than half, 56 percent, came from counties within California, while the other 44 percent came from out of state.

Below are rankings for the top five counties of origin for movers to Los Angeles County:

Movers outside of California:

Clark County, NV (Las Vegas) Maricopa County, AZ (Phoenix) New York County, NY (Manhattan) Cook County, IL (Chicago) King County, WA (Seattle)

Movers from California:

Orange County San Bernardino County Riverside County San Diego County Ventura County

Embed this image on your site (copy the code below):

Via via SpareFoot’s Los Angeles Moving Guide



All that movement generates demand for local self-storage facilities.

In 2015, relocation (moving) was the number one reason Los Angeles consumers gave for needing storage, with 48% of SpareFoot survey respondents in the market using storage for that reason. The next closest reason for renting a storage unit in San Diego was decluttering, at 16%.

This is in line with the national average–about half of the people that book storage on SpareFoot are doing so because of a move.