North Dakota was the nation’s fastest-growing state in the past year.
U.S. Census Bureau data show that North Dakota’s population grew 2.2 percent, to 699,628, in the year ending July 1, as the oil boom drew workers to the Bakken fields in the western part of the state.
“We had rural population declining in western North Dakota for decades,” said Dean Bangsund, an economist at North Dakota State University in Fargo who has studied the effects of the oil boom. “Now we are looking at growth curves that are just short of astonishing.”
North Dakota this year became the No. 2 oil-producing state behind Texas as drillers tapped into shale oil deposits and began pumping record amounts of crude. In October, the oil output was 747,239 barrels, nearly six times the output of five years ago.
Rod Backman, chairman of the North Dakota Census Committee, said the census estimates don’t include at least 24,000 workers who live in temporary camps set up mainly for migrant oil field workers.
