NEW BEDFORD — New Bedford officially has more than 100,000 residents for the first time since last century, according to U.S. Census data from 2020 released yesterday — and Fall River's population hit 94,000.

New Bedford's population grew from 95,000 in 2010 to 101,079 in 2020 — an increase of around 6,000 residents, representing 6% growth in the past decade.

The Whaling City reached its peak population of more than 121,000 in 1920, according to that year's census, and has been declining gradually ever since.

WFHN-FM/FUN 107 logo
Get our free mobile app

Last year saw New Bedford struggle to complete the count of its residents amid the pandemic, with a response rate of just 56 percent in August.

Fall River's population grew from under 89,000 in 2010 to 94,000 in 2020. The increase of around 5,200 residents represents 5.9% growth since 2010.

The population of Bristol County went up 5.6%, growing to 579,000 in 2020 from 548,000 in 2010.

Overall, Massachusetts' population grew by around half a million people, or around 7%, since 2010, with over seven million residents in 2020.

This mirrors the population growth of the U.S. as a whole, which grew by 7.1% to 331.4 million people in 2020, according to census data.

The percentage of adults over 18 in Bristol County, 79.7%, was slightly lower than the 80.6% of adults aged 18 and over in Massachusetts as a whole — although both were higher than the 77.9% proportion of adults in the U.S. population.

Meanwhile 67.6% of Massachusetts people listed their race as just white in 2020, down from 76.1% in 2010, while the proportion of biracial and mixed-race people more than doubled, from 1.9% in 2010 to 4.7% in 2020.

Those listed as Hispanic or Latino grew from 9.6% of the population in 2010 to 12.6% in 2020.

Asian people became the state's third-largest ethnic group in 2020, with 7.2% of the population claiming Asian heritage as opposed to 5.3% in 2010.

More information about the latest census data release is available at census.gov.

Now Here's Some Data We Can Really Sink Our Teeth Into: The 50 Most Popular Chain Restaurants in America

YouGov investigated the most popular dining brands in the country, and Stacker compiled the list to give readers context on the findings. Read on to look through America's vast and divergent variety of restaurants—maybe you'll even find a favorite or two.

More From WFHN-FM/FUN 107