In 2023, the population of the Phoenix-Mesa-Chandler metropolitan area in the United States was about 5.1 million people. This is a slight increase from the previous year, when the population was about 5.02 million people.

Chart and table of population level and growth rate for the Phoenix metro area from 1950 to 2025.

Graph and download economic data for Resident Population in Phoenix-Mesa-Scottsdale, AZ (MSA) (PHXPOP) from 2000 to 2024 about Phoenix, AZ, residents, population, and USA.

About this dataset

Context

The dataset tabulates the Phoenix population over the last 20 plus years. It lists the population for each year, along with the year on year change in population, as well as the change in percentage terms for each year. The dataset can be utilized to understand the population change of Phoenix across the last two decades. For example, using this dataset, we can identify if the population is declining or increasing. If there is a change, when the population peaked, or if it is still growing and has not reached its peak. We can also compare the trend with the overall trend of United States population over the same period of time.

Key observations

In 2023, the population of Phoenix was 1.65 million, a 0.38% increase year-by-year from 2022. Previously, in 2022, Phoenix population was 1.64 million, an increase of 1.15% compared to a population of 1.63 million in 2021. Over the last 20 plus years, between 2000 and 2023, population of Phoenix increased by 322,874. In this period, the peak population was 1.68 million in the year 2019. The numbers suggest that the population has already reached its peak and is showing a trend of decline. Source: U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates Program (PEP).

Content

When available, the data consists of estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates Program (PEP).

Data Coverage:

• From 2000 to 2023

Variables / Data Columns

• Year: This column displays the data year (Measured annually and for years 2000 to 2023)
• Population: The population for the specific year for the Phoenix is shown in this column.
• Year on Year Change: This column displays the change in Phoenix population for each year compared to the previous year.
• Change in Percent: This column displays the year on year change as a percentage. Please note that the sum of all percentages may not equal one due to rounding of values.

Good to know

Margin of Error

Data in the dataset are based on the estimates and are subject to sampling variability and thus a margin of error. Neilsberg Research recommends using caution when presening these estimates in your research.

Custom data

If you do need custom data for any of your research project, report or presentation, you can contact our research staff at research@neilsberg.com for a feasibility of a custom tabulation on a fee-for-service basis.

Inspiration

Neilsberg Research Team curates, analyze and publishes demographics and economic data from a variety of public and proprietary sources, each of which often includes multiple surveys and programs. The large majority of Neilsberg Research aggregated datasets and insights is made available for free download at https://www.neilsberg.com/research/.

Recommended for further research

This dataset is a part of the main dataset for Phoenix Population by Year. You can refer the same here

These data represent a geospatial analysis of Hispanic population as percentage of total population, population density for 2000 within the Greater Phoenix Area.

Population Density per square mile - 2000. Visit https://dataone.org/datasets/knb-lter-cap.20.6 for complete metadata about this dataset.

Graph and download economic data for Employed Persons in Phoenix-Mesa-Scottsdale, AZ (MSA) (LAUMT043806000000005) from Jan 1990 to May 2025 about Phoenix, AZ, household survey, employment, persons, and USA.

Graph and download economic data for Unemployment Rate in Phoenix-Mesa-Scottsdale, AZ (MSA) (LAUMT043806000000003A) from 1990 to 2024 about Phoenix, AZ, household survey, unemployment, rate, and USA.

These data provide a spatial representation of the population change 1980 - 2000. Map Shows the census tracts that have experienced a doubling of population between 1980 and 1990 and between 1990 and 2000 in the central Arizona-Phoenix area.

These data represent the general age distribution of the population for the greater Phoenix area, central Arizona, based on the 2000 Census.

Graph and download economic data for Civilian Labor Force in Phoenix-Mesa-Scottsdale, AZ (MSA) (LAUMT043806000000006A) from 1990 to 2024 about Phoenix, AZ, civilian, labor force, labor, household survey, and USA.

Change in percent of Hispanic population from 1980-2000 for the Phoenix metropolitan area covered by the Central Arizona-Phoenix long term ecological research (CAP LTER) project.

Graph and download economic data for Unemployed Persons in Phoenix-Mesa-Scottsdale, AZ (MSA) (LAUMT043806000000004) from Jan 1990 to May 2025 about Phoenix, AZ, household survey, unemployment, persons, and USA.

PASS is an interdisciplinary collaboration between researchers affiliated with the Central Arizona-Phoenix LTER (CAP LTER) and the Decision Center for a Desert City at Arizona State University. PASS uses social surveys of individuals in selected neighborhoods as methodology to explain the choices and actions of households and communities that influence the biophysical environment and the feedbacks of the environment to the quality of human life. After a successful pilot study in 2001-2002, data gathering for a much larger survey of 800 households in 40 neighborhoods is nearly completed. PASS 2006 is the benchmark for planned long-term social monitoring that will complement ecological monitoring in the CAP LTER study region

These data represent individuals admitted to non-federal health facilities and discharged with primary diagnosis of asthma. The data are presented as a percentage of population by zip code for the year 1999.

Distribution of Ragweed pollen sampled in Greater Phoenix

Wildlife communities are structured by numerous ecological filters in cities that influence their populations, and some species even manage to thrive in urban landscapes. CAP researchers were the first to observe “the luxury effect”, the hypothesis that biodiversity is positively related to income of residents. The luxury effect is still being tested worldwide twenty years later and has led to important new research on other socio-demographic factors that shape biodiversity but are vastly understudied, such as race and ethnicity, as well as the interaction of these factors with urban structural inequalities that may be hidden by income. This research aims to unpack the luxury effect by considering other landscape and socio-demographic factors that may influence wildlife communities across neighborhoods of metro Phoenix. Specifically, we are investigating if neighborhood income and ethnicity independently influence mammal occupancy in neighborhoods across the CAP ecosystem. To answer this question, we leveraged a wildlife camera array across CAP within community parks, in which cameras are placed across a gradient of average median household income and percent Latinx of residents. Incorporating socioeconomic data into urban mammal research will allow for the advancement in the understanding of socio-ecological patterns.

Over the past half-century, the greater Phoenix metropolitan area (GPMA) has been one of the fastest growing regions in the US, experiencing rapid urban expansion in addition to urban intensification. This backdrop provides an ideal setting to monitor biodiversity changes in response to urbanization, and the CAP LTER has been using a standardized point-count protocol to monitor the bird population in the greater Phoenix metropolitan area and surrounding Sonoran desert region since 2000. A subset of bird-monitoring sites are located in riparian areas. In May and June of 2013, the CAP LTER surveyed the vegetation in 6,400 square meter plots around these sites as part of an analysis of change in bird abundance and community composition. This dataset catalogs the results of vegetation surveys at nineteen bird-monitoring sites in riparian areas of the GPMA.

The spread of urbanization is inevitable in both the developed and developing nations of the world. As cities continue to spread the impact on the environment, flora and fauna of their local ecosystems increases. In a southwestern U.S. city (Phoenix, AZ), we assess the effects of urban development on the local raptor population both in terms of casualties and nesting behavior.

Not many studies have documented climate and air quality changes of settlements at early stages of development. This is because high quality climate and air quality records are deficient for the periods of the early 18th century to mid 20th century when many U.S. cities were formed and grew. Dramatic landscape change induces substantial local climate change during the incipient stage of development. Rapid growth along the urban fringe in Phoenix, coupled with a fine-grained climate monitoring system, provide a unique opportunity to study the climate impacts of urban development as it unfolds. Generally, heat islands form, particularly at night, in proportion to city population size and morphological characteristics. Drier air is produced by replacement of the countryside's moist landscapes with dry, hot urbanized surfaces. Wind is increased due to turbulence induced by the built-up urban fabric and its morphology; although, depending on spatial densities of buildings on the land, wind may also decrease. Air quality conditions are worsened due to increased city emissions and surface disturbances. Depending on the diversity of microclimates in pre-existing rural landscapes and the land-use mosaic in cities, the introduction of settlements over time and space can increase or decrease the variety of microclimates within and near urban regions. These differences in microclimatic conditions can influence variations in health, ecological, architectural, economic, energy and water resources, and quality-of-life conditions in the city. Therefore, studying microclimatic conditions which change in the urban fringe over time and space is at the core of urban ecological goals as part of LTER aims. In analyzing Phoenix and Baltimore long-term rural/urban weather and climate stations, Brazel et al. (In progress) have discovered that long-term (i.e., 100 years) temperature changes do not correlate with populations changes in a linear manner, but rather in a third-order nonlinear response fashion. This nonlinear temporal change is consistent with the theories in boundary layer climatology that describe and explain the leading edge transition and energy balance theory. This pattern of urban vs. rural temperature response has been demonstrated in relation to spatial range of city sizes (using population data) for 305 rural vs. urban climate stations in the U.S. Our recent work on the two urban LTER sites has shown that a similar climate response pattern also occurs over time for climate stations that were initially located in rural locations have been overrun bu the urban fringe and subsequent urbanization (e.g., stations in Baltimore, Mesa, Phoenix, and Tempe). Lack of substantial numbers of weather and climate stations in cities has previously precluded small-scale analyses of geographic variations of urban climate, and the links to land-use change processes. With the advent of automated weather and climate station networks, remote-sensing technology, land-use history, and the focus on urban ecology, researchers can now analyze local climate responses as a function of the details of land-use change. Therefore, the basic research question of this study is: How does urban climate change over time and space at the place of maximum disturbance on the urban fringe? Hypotheses 1. Based on the leading edge theory of boundary layer climate change, largest changes should occur during the period of peak development of the land when land is being rapidly transformed from open desert and agriculture to residential, commercial, and industrial uses. 2. One would expect to observe, on average and on a temporal basis (several years), nonlinear temperature and humidity alterations across the station network at varying levels of urban development. 3. Based on past research on urban climate, one would expect to see in areas of the urban fringe, rapid changes in temperature (increases at night particularly), humidity (decreases in areas from agriculture to urban; increases from desert to urban), and wind speed (increases due to urban heating). 4. Changes of the surface climate on the urban fringe are expected to be altered as a function of various energy, moisture, and momentum control parameters, such as albedo, surface moisture, aerodynamic surface roughness, and thermal admittance. These parameters relate directly to population and land-use change (Lougeay et al. 1996).