2010 Census: County loses, city gains

Van Wert independent/U.S. Census Bureau information

According to figures released Wednesday by the U.S. Census Bureau, neither Ohio nor the Van Wert County area have fared well in the last decade.

While the news could be worse for the state, which did see population growth, that growth did not keep up with the national average — driven for the most part by the population shift from Rust Belt states to the Southwest.

According to figures released Wednesday, Ohio’s population increased 1.62 percent — a total of 183,364 people — over its 2000 population of 11,353,140. The lack of robust growth also cost the state two seats in the U.S. House of Representatives, which would cut the state’s number of U.S. representatives from 18 to 16. Ohio also lost one representative from the 2000 U.S. Census.

Van Wert County actually lost population over the last 10 years, decreasing from 29,659 in 2000 to 28,744 in the 2010 census. Other area counties that lost population include Allen, Auglaize, Paulding, Putnam and even Mercer County — which had the lowest unemployment in the state in January.

There was some good news for the City of Van Wert, though, since the municipality was the exception to what was mostly declining populations in area cities. Van Wert didn’t substantial growth, increasing in population by just 156 people, from 10690 in 2000 to 10,846 last year.

The Census Bureau will be releasing more specific details of the 2010 census, including population breakdowns by age, education and household income, sometime after the overall reporting deadline of April 1.

For more information on how the various states and political subdivisions fared in the census, the U.S. Census Bureau’s website is www.census.gov.