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Where Americans moved in 2014, in one map

Balmy Florida and booming North Dakota were two of the most popular places for people to move in 2014, according to census data.

Migration map

(Jed Kolko)

This map, made from census data compiled and mapped by online real estate information firm Trulia, shows net domestic migration — the number of people moving from one place in the US to another (so it doesn’t include people coming into or leaving the country). The data reveals that last year there weren’t many huge state- or region-wide trends in where Americans moved; most states have some pockets that lost people and some that gained people.

However, there are a few areas that people seemed particularly keen to move into or flee. Alaska and New Mexico appear to have had relatively high rates of out-migration, while people flocked to the Southeast, as well as North Dakota, which has benefited in the past few years from the fracking boom. Texas, meanwhile, had three counties of the 15 with the highest levels of in-migration but 7 of the 15 with the highest levels of out-migration, according to Business Insider.

Florida, in particular, has several purple counties. That’s no surprise, as the state has experienced a big population boom recently. It overtook New York last year as the third most populous US state, behind California and Texas. The South as a whole has been a huge beneficiary of domestic migration in recent years, but Florida is a special case, boasting six of the 20 fastest-growing metro areas in the nation last year. Florida’s recovering economy and an influx of retirees are two potential reasons behind the population growth. In addition, Florida is growing for one big reason not represented on this map: immigration.

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