US counties that lost the most population since 1990

The other side of the Sun Belt boom is the slow demographic drawdown of the industrial Northeast and parts of the Mississippi Delta. Across US counties with at least 50,000 residents today and a 1990 baseline, 25 have fewer people now than they did 34 years ago.

Wayne County, Michigan leads the list at −339,428 residents lost.

#	Place	1990	Latest	Change
1	Wayne County, Michigan	2,111,687	1,772,259	−339,428
2	Cuyahoga County, Ohio	1,412,140	1,245,873	−166,267
3	Baltimore city, Maryland	736,014	573,243	−162,771
4	Orleans Parish, Louisiana	496,938	371,853	−125,085
5	St. Louis city, Missouri	396,685	288,512	−108,173
6	Allegheny County, Pennsylvania	1,336,449	1,238,177	−98,272
7	Mahoning County, Ohio	264,806	226,491	−38,315
8	Montgomery County, Ohio	573,809	536,096	−37,713
9	Hinds County, Mississippi	254,441	218,533	−35,908
10	Hamilton County, Ohio	866,228	830,774	−35,454
11	Lucas County, Ohio	462,361	428,018	−34,343
12	Milwaukee County, Wisconsin	959,275	926,331	−32,944
13	Cambria County, Pennsylvania	163,029	131,538	−31,491
14	Kanawha County, West Virginia	207,619	176,537	−31,082
15	Norfolk city, Virginia	261,229	233,596	−27,633
16	Genesee County, Michigan	430,459	403,305	−27,154
17	Trumbull County, Ohio	227,813	200,929	−26,884
18	Saginaw County, Michigan	211,946	188,665	−23,281
19	Oneida County, New York	250,836	229,124	−21,712
20	Jefferson County, Arkansas	85,487	64,802	−20,685
21	Aroostook County, Maine	86,936	67,058	−19,878
22	Beaver County, Pennsylvania	186,093	166,324	−19,769
23	Fayette County, Pennsylvania	145,351	125,997	−19,354
24	Caddo Parish, Louisiana	248,253	230,004	−18,249
25	Erie County, New York	968,532	950,622	−17,910

Key findings

• Wayne County, Michigan leads the list at −339,428.
• The 25th-ranked county on this list — Erie County, New York — shows −17,910.
• Across the full universe of 1003 county rows with both data points, the typical change was +30,593.
• The top decliners concentrate in Ohio (6 of the top 25), Pennsylvania (4 of the top 25), Michigan (3 of the top 25).

Where the pattern sits geographically

Ohio (6 of the top 25), Pennsylvania (4 of the top 25), Michigan (3 of the top 25) together account for the bulk of the top of this list. Click any county above to open its CensusEasy page, which carries the full historical time series for every metric we publish (income, education, housing, commute, race composition, industry mix), plus its rank within its state and its national percentile on each metric.

How to read this

This ranking is sorted by absolute change, not by percentage change. Absolute change is the figure that lines up with how readers experience these numbers in everyday life ("the typical household here earns $X more than in 1990"). The percentage-change framing surfaces a different set of county rows — usually places that started from a low base — and we publish those rankings separately on the rankings pages.

A single metric never tells the whole story. The largest decline on this list can reflect either change in the same population staying in place, or compositional change as some residents leave and others arrive. Companion studies on poverty, education, and housing cost together describe the fuller picture.