Actually, it's neighboring Dallas County that's fueling the metro area's growth. Its population has increased 15.6% since 2020 compared to Polk County, of which Des Moines is the county seat, which has seen a 4.8% growth. (492,401 in 2020 to an estimated 516,185 in 2024. Des Moines, on the other hand, has experienced a 0.5% loss in population. (214,133 in 2020, to 213,096 in 2025
Population: Wikipedia
Headline: Des Moines Register, 6/12/2025
Kevin Baskins reports:
Annual U.S. Census estimates show the six-county Des Moines metro, one of the 100 largest in the United States, grew 6.3% from 2020 to 2024. It's comfortably within the top 20% of all U.S. metros, large and small, for its rate of growth and has been for most of the past three decades.
Out-of-state transplants to Iowa like Fleming are one source of Des Moines' growth. A hint of another can be heard in a song that was popular among soldiers returning from World War I: “How Ya Gonna Keep ‘Em Down on the Farm ( After They've Seen Paree?)”
It's not Paris, but the growth of the metro with the French-sounding name — Des Moines — has been fed by migration from Iowa's increasingly empty countryside.
The metro accounted for 85% of Iowa's growth in the most recent decade while the most recent U.S. Census estimates show that 58 of Iowa's 99 counties — almost 60% — lost population from 2020 to 2024. That continues a trend that began well before the 1980s Farm Crisis decimated many Iowa small towns.
Even some of Iowa's biggest metros — Davenport, Dubuque and Sioux City — are steadily losing residents to larger ones like Minneapolis-St. Paul, Omaha, Nebraska, and, of course, Des Moines.
Related post:
Why are some counties experiencing population increases? They are now in the orbit of a metro area. (Dallas County/Des Moines Iowa edition). (6/14/2024)
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