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Population (Census PEP) in Bethel Census Area
18,391
as of July 2025 · annual · annual
▲ 0.1% vs prior · ▲ 0.1% vs a year earlier
Series population_pep.bethel_census_area.annual
History since 2020
Range
Show
Recent values
| Date | Population (Census PEP) |
|---|---|
| 2025-07-01 | 18,391 |
| 2024-07-01 | 18,365 |
| 2023-07-01 | 18,248 |
| 2022-07-01 | 18,255 |
| 2021-07-01 | 18,589 |
| 2020-07-01 | 18,672 |
Related series
- PopulationPopulation change decomposed: births minus deaths is natural increase, and net migration is everything else. Alaska's totals have held up recently only because natural increase offsets people leaving.
Population (Census PEP) elsewhere
- Alaska
- Aleutians East Borough
- Aleutians West Census Area
- Bristol Bay Borough
- Dillingham Census Area
- Kusilvak Census Area
- Lake and Peninsula Borough
- Chugach Census Area
More about Bethel Census Area
About this data
The Census Bureau's official annual population estimates: total resident population each July 1 for Alaska and all 30 boroughs/census areas, plus components of change (births, deaths, net migration). This is the denominator dataset — per-capita anything uses it — and the authoritative number for Alaska-vs-other-states comparisons. Headline series: statewide total population and its year-over-year change.
Known issues & gotchas
- The Census API does not serve PEP vintages 2020+ (endpoints stop at
2019/pep/population). CSV ingestion from www2.census.gov is the only automated path — do not burn time on the API. - One file covers state and boroughs:
co-est2025-alldata.csvcontains aSUMLEV == "040"state row andSUMLEV == "050"borough rows. FilterSTATE == "02"(string — keep leading zeros; naive int parsing turns FIPS 02 into 2). - The URL moves every vintage: directory
2020-2024/→2020-2025/and filenameco-est2024-alldata.csv→co-est2025-alldata.csv(verified: 2020-2025 posted 2026-03-26). Connector should probe the next vintage path each year and the brief URL must be bumped annually. - Layout (verified 2026-08-06): single header row;
ESTIMATESBASE2020, POPESTIMATE2020..POPESTIMATE2025, then wide blocks ofNPOPCHG,BIRTHS,DEATHS,NETMIG, etc. per year — wide format, melt to long. - Each vintage restates all prior years — store by vintage; never mix years across vintages in one series without labeling.
- Alaska boroughs get periodic boundary changes (e.g., 2019 Valdez-Cordova split into Chugach and Copper River census areas) — geographies are not stable over decades