ATLANTIC, GULF OF MEXICO AND PACIFIC COASTLINE REGIONS - POPULATION GROWTH

Coastline counties – those adjacent to coastal water or territorial sea – are grouped into the Atlantic, Gulf of Mexico and Pacific regions. About 94.7 million people, or about 29.1% of the total U.S. population, lived in coastline counties in 2017, a 15.3% growth since 2000. About 60.2 million people lived in the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico regions – those most vulnerable to hurricanes. These areas added 8.3 million people between 2000 and 2017, a 16% increase. The Gulf of Mexico was the fastest growing of the coastline regions. It added more than 3 million people between 2000 and 2017, 1 26.1% increase. The nation as a whole grew by 15.7%

POPULATION BY COASTLINE REGION
Region	Number of Counties	Population, in millions	Percent of U.S. Total
Coastline	255	94.7	29.1
Atlantic	129	44.4	13.6
Pacific	70	34.4	10.6
Gulf of Mexico	56	15.8	4.9
Noncoastline	2,887	231.1	70.9
United States	3,142	325.7	100.0

Although the Gulf of Mexico was the smallest of the coastline regions, it was also the fastest growing between 2000 and 2017, adding more than 3 million people for an increase of 26.1 percent – more than 10 percentage points higher than the U.S. growth rate of 15.7 percent over the same period. Harris County, TX, which had the largest numeric gain of any county in the United States over the period, played a noteworthy role in the Gulf of Mexico region’s growth rate.