For the first time in Utah's history, over half of its population lives in cities of at least 50,000 people. But that doesn’t mean the state is growing equally.
Data in first-of-its-kind subcounty population estimates compiled by the University of Utah’s Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute found that 172 of Utah’s 284 communities grew between 2024 and 2025. The institute has previously issued reports on state and county-level population estimates. The new numbers are more granular.
“This is the first time our state has produced city-level, county-level and state-level numbers that all come together,” said institute Director Natalie Gochnour. “We need population numbers so that we can plan appropriately, so that we can make decisions that are informed, and so that we can allocate funds in a way that approximates the needs of all of these communities.”
A more detailed look at pockets of growth will be essential if Utah continues to be one of the fastest-growing states in the nation. Notably, over 50% of the state’s population now lives in just 20 cities.
Suburban Saratoga Springs and Eagle Mountain grew the most from 2024 to 2025, adding 4,682 and 4,169 people, respectively. The urban hubs of Salt Lake City and St. George followed closely behind, also adding thousands of new residents.
Construction has recently boomed in Saratoga Springs and Eagle Mountain. In Saratoga Springs alone, the city estimates that it will have over 120,000 residents when all of its lots are built out.
But it isn’t just single-family and townhome construction driving population growth. In Salt Lake City, construction has gone up rather than out.
“There's been a lot of multifamily, pretty dense development in Salt Lake City that has been showing up in a really pronounced way in these estimates in the past several years,” said Mallory Bateman, the Gardner Institute’s director of demographic research. “And that makes a really big impact.”
In fact, from 2023 to 2024, a full one in five new housing units along the Wasatch Front were added in Salt Lake City. Those large apartment complexes have sprung up along major road corridors and transportation hubs throughout the city.
Demographer Megan Rabe said there are a few caveats to the capital city’s growth, notably the Utah State Correctional Facility’s move from Draper to Salt Lake City in 2022, which added thousands of residents. But that doesn’t tell the whole story.
“If you're kind of looking over time, the story of Salt Lake City is that really high number of permitting for these large multifamily apartment complexes,” Rabe said.
But widespread growth isn’t happening everywhere. In fact, cities like Provo and Orem ended up losing population in that same time frame. Orem had the biggest drop-off of 942 people.
While there might not be a singular reason for the decline in those cities, Gochnour has some theories.
“We think of Utah as this rapidly growing state, which is absolutely true, but when you get behind the curtains and look at various communities, you'll see all sorts of variation,” she said. “We do have some traditional communities. In a lot of ways, the kids have grown up and left home, and the parents are still there. But we have smaller family sizes, and so the persons per household goes down.”
Bateman agreed that the reasons for decline are not always as simple as people moving out.
“It might be more people dying than babies being born,” she said. “So in some of the smaller growth areas, smaller communities, it could just be a combination of not having new movers coming in and kind of that older population aging out.”
For Gochnour, the numbers show just how variable growth in Utah really is.
“We're still a high-growth state, but our growth has moderated,” she said.
Editor’s note: KUER is a licensee of the University of Utah but operates as an editorially independent news organization.
