The first set of widely available New Hampshire population figures date back to 1790 when, little more than a decade after the Declaration of Independence, it was shown that 141,885 people were living in the state. Ten years later, the 1800 survey showed that those numbers had climbed to 183,858, a rise of 29.6% in just a decade.
Moving forward, the population of New Hampshire grew at a steady, albeit not particularly spectacular rate, with growth averaging at around 5% per decade, with the occasional small decrease in population (such as between 1870 and 1880, when the population dropped by 2.4%). By the beginning of the 20th century, New Hampshire’s population had increased to 411,588.
The same rates of growth continued through the first half of the 20th century but, in the second half of the century, New Hampshire experienced another population boom. Between 1960 and 2000, the state’s population more than doubled, largely because of the so-called Massachusetts Transplants -- people moving from a crowded urban area to a more relaxed rural area.
The growth rate has slowed slightly while entering the 21st century but remains on an upward trend.
New Hampshire Population Growth
New Hampshire has such a small amount of land, much of it rugged terrain, that growth can only be maintained for so long. New Hampshire's population has been growing quickly for decades, but researchers have found this growth rate is slowing down. A large reason for the growth has been families moving from elsewhere in the country, particularly Massachusetts, but this trend is changing.
The growth rate in New Hampshire is now the slowest it has been in 50 years, while the state's population is also aging rapidly as families are not moving in with children as they once did.
New Hampshire Population Projections
While this all sounds dire, New Hampshire is growing, just slowly. With its current growth rate, one of the lowest in the country, its population is expected to grow from the current 1.33 million in 2016 to 1.35 million in 2020, at which point its percentage of people over 65 will be disproportionately high compared to the U.S. as a whole.