Dublin—yes, Dublin—is one of America’s fastest growing cities

The U.S. Census released new figures on population growth Thursday and discovered that Dublin is the fastest growing city in California—and one of the fastest growing in America, the only Bay Area city to show any remarkable growth in recent years.

The census ranked the 15 fastest growing large cities (defined as those with populations of 50,000 or more) between July 2017 and July 2018. Dublin, which was up 4.5 percent for a total population of 63,455, came in 11th in the rankings, the only California city on the list.

Comparatively, San Francisco was up 0.5 percent last year, less than the 0.7 percent average increase for large cities during the period and one of the city’s smallest year-over-year gains in recent memory.

(Note that the Census based these rankings on initial estimates tabulated earlier this year and will later adjust those figures for more accuracy, which could affect the rankings.)

According to last year’s report, no California cities cracked the top 15 for growth as a percentage of the population, Dublin included. Nor the year before that, although several California cities showed big gains in the number of residents added.

The Census did single out Dublin’s growth a few years ago for its assessment of the 2014-2015 period; that year the East Bay city landed sixth on the rankings, up 5.5 percent with 57,721 persons. Milpitas was eighth that year, spiking 5.3 percent.

For the last full census in 2010, Dublin had just over 46,000 residents. That’s growth of more than 37.8 percent for the decade; San Francisco is up just 9.7 percent in the same period, San Jose nearly 8.2 percent, and Oakland nearly 9.8 percent.

In 2018, San Francisco was the 15th largest city nationwide with an estimated 883,305 residents. San Jose came in tenth with just over 1 million.

Almost all Bay Area counties saw net increases year over year during the 2017-2018 period, with the exception of Marin, Sonoma, and Napa counties.

While the North Bay contraction is primarily due to the devastating wildfires during the period, those counties were already shrinking in years prior, albeit by smaller degrees.

The Bay Area headcount overall grew by 21,000 during the period.