City & Town Population

Mississippi City & Town Population Change

Resident population estimates for incorporated places · April 2020 base → July 2025

Source: U.S. Census Bureau, SUB-IP-EST2025-POP-28 · 299 places · Updated June 2026

Largest population gains & declines (absolute)

Net change in residents, 2020–2025. Showing the top 15 in each direction.

Fastest growing & shrinking (percent)

Percent change 2020–2025. Use the size filter to screen out very small towns where a few people swing the rate.

Population trajectories, 2020–2025

Trace year-by-year paths. Pick a preset group or search and select any places to compare.

Indexed view sets each place to 100 in 2020 so you can compare growth rates regardless of city size.

How much of the change came from outside Mississippi?

Migration from outside the state = people moving in/out from other U.S. states (IRS county-to-county flows) plus international migration (Census / IRS foreign). Moves between MS towns are internal and cancel out statewide. IRS figures cover 2020–2023 (the three filing-year pairs that overlap this period); Census components shown for 2024–25.

Statewide takeaway: over 2020–2023 Mississippi had a net loss to the rest of the country (IRS), only partly offset by international arrivals — so growth in specific towns came mostly from within-state reshuffling (e.g. Jackson → its suburbs), while genuine outside-MS gains concentrated in DeSoto County and the Gulf Coast.

Net migration from outside MS, by county

IRS-measured individuals, cumulative 2020–2023. Positive = county gained more from outside Mississippi than it lost.

Which states is Mississippi trading people with?

Net IRS flow by state, 2020–2023. Green = MS gained on net from that state; red = MS lost on net to it.

County migration detail

Click a county name to see the specific counties and states its migrants came from and moved to (top 10 flows in each direction). Click a header to sort. “Inc. pop Δ” is the change in this county’s incorporated-place population 2020–2023 — compare it to outside-MS migration to see how much was internal vs external.

County Net outside MS Other states Int’l Within MS Net total Inc. pop Δ 20–23

All places

Click any column header to sort. Type to filter.

Place County 2020 2025 Net Δ % Δ Est. outside-MS Δ (20–23) Change
Sources & method. Population: U.S. Census Bureau, SUB-IP-EST2025-POP-28 (place estimates, 2020–2025). Migration: IRS SOI county-to-county and state-to-state migration files for Mississippi, filing-year pairs 2020–21, 2021–22, 2022–23 (measuring tax filers + dependents, an undercount of total population); Census components of change for 2024–25. “Migration from outside MS” = net flow with other U.S. states + net international (foreign). IRS captures foreign migration poorly at the county level (small counts are suppressed), so international is best read from the Census figures. City-level “Est. outside-MS Δ” allocates each county’s net outside-MS migration to its towns in proportion to 2020 incorporated population — an approximation that can over/understate individual towns, especially university counties (e.g. Oktibbeha/Starkville) and fast-growing suburbs. City→county mapping was assembled from geographic knowledge. Very large percentage swings in small towns (Duck Hill, Tutwiler) reflect annexations or group-quarters/estimate revisions, not organic migration. “Net Δ” is 2025 minus the 2020 base.
This data is free — collecting and analyzing it isn’t. Rethink Mississippi is an initiative of Working Together Mississippi, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit. Your gift keeps this research public.
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