Florida is the state with the third largest population - Now official

This is big news not because it's unexpected (everyone knew it would happen) but because it is now official: Florida has surpassed New York State in population. As Christine Stapleton reports the county-by-county numbers aren't out yet. This story in the Post today will fire up the debate about where all these people are going to reside, in our existing urban areas or in new westward sprawl. Here is an excerpt from the article by Christine Stapleton and pay particular attention to the last paragraph:

Sorry New Yorkers: There are officially more of us than youse.

Census population estimates released Tuesday show the population of Florida — 19.9 million — has surpassed that of the Empire state — 19.7 million, making Florida the third most populous state in the country.

Florida earned a spot among the top three by adding 293,000 new residents between July 1, 2013 and July 1, 2014, an average of 803 a day. By contrast, New York added 51,000 residents during that year.

California remained the nation’s most populous state, with 38.8 million residents, followed by Texas at 27 million. Overall, the U.S. population increased by 2.4 million to 318.9 million.

County-level numbers were not released. However, Palm Beach County’s estimated population of 1.3 million is greater than the population of nine states, including Rhode Island, Montana, Vermont and Wyoming.