Wondering where all those new Arizonans are coming from?

New estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau show that more than 256,000 people moved here last year from somewhere else. And close to a quarter of them arrived here from another country.

Still, there was a lot of what’s called domestic migration.

That includes more than 54,000 former Californians who, if you believe some of the political rhetoric, are people fleeing because of that state’s liberal policies.

Yet if things are that bad there, that fails to explain the fact that some 21,000 Arizonans concluded during the same period that life is better on the West Coast.

And surely, if what has been driving people to Arizona is this state’s more conservative politics, that doesn’t explain the nearly 17,000 from deep-red Texas who decided they prefer Arizona. Still, that was dwarfed, if only slightly by the 19,900 Arizonans who decamped to the Lone Star State.

All this, of course, is speculation.

People move for all sorts of reasons, like better weather.

Consider the weather.  More than 6,700 of new Arizonans last year came from Michigan and almost 5,700 from Minnesota.

Yet those bitter winters apparently were not a deterrent to everyone.

Some 4,000 Arizonans decided they would rather live in the Great Lakes State. And almost 4,800 decided they want to be in the Land of 1,000 Lakes.

Better fishing?

A lot of it comes down to people going where the jobs are.

Figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics for 2023 show the number of jobs in Arizona grew by 2.1%. That was enough to rank it No. 12 in the nation.

By contrast, New York was fifth from the bottom at less than half that figure.

So it’s probably no surprise that more than 7,600 New Yorkers packed up and move to Arizona last year. Yet about 3,500 Arizonans went the other way, perhaps because of the bright lights of Broadway.

Another big contributor to Arizona’s growing population was Oregon, where almost 10,500 of its residents chose the Grand Canyon State. That compares with 7,144 Arizonans who went the other way.

And, speaking of the Northwest, more than 12,800 current Arizonans came from Washington versus 10,675 who went the other way.

There are some places beyond Texas that apparently were bigger lures for Arizonans than the number of their residents who came here.

For example, Arizona picked up 1,373 folks from Alabama last year. Yet nearly 4,500 residents here decided they’d rather be there. And more Arizonans moved to Colorado than residents of that state came here.

Ditto Kentucky and Nevada. And both North and South Carolina, which have growing economies, also attracted more Arizonans than those who came here from there.

And, for some reason, the number of Arizonans who left for West Virginia is 22 times higher than those who left the Mountain State.

Still, Arizona ranks No.14 in overall state population.

While the latest Census figures are just for 2023, other statistics from the federal agency show these migration patterns aren’t isolated.

Out of more than 7.43 million Arizonans, just 2.91 million actually were born here. That’s less than 40%.

By contrast, nearly 1.1 million current residents were born in a foreign country, about one out of every five Arizonans. The Census Bureau has no breakdown of their legal status.

Domestically, more than 768,000 current residents were born in California. Put another way, out of any random group of 10 Arizonans you meet on the street, one is from the Coast.

The state has more than 177,000 New York-born residents and 155,000 from the Lone Star State.

Other 

Other big contributors to Arizona’s population include more than 138,00 from Michigan, 120,000 from Washington, close to 100,000 from Minnesota and about 98,000 from Pennsylvania.

State / 2023 inflow / 2023 outflow / Residents born there now living here

Alabama / 1,373 / 4,470 / 13,610

Alaska / 2,017 / 618 / 18,490

Arkansas / 1,896 / 1,112 / 23,352

California / 54,222 / 21,152 / 768,642

Colorado / 8,344 / 12,378 / 91,143

Connecticut / 1,085 / 657 / 29,281

Delaware / 514 / 476 / 6,078

District of Columbia / 74 / 242 / 10,488

Florida / 12,762 / 8,361 / 48,740

Georgia / 6,326 / 2,706 / 22,591

Hawaii / 2,226 / 1,932 / 20,750

Idaho / 5,132 / 4.026 / 34,232

Illinois / 9,030 / 4,417 / 279,846

Indiana / 2,974 / 2,123 / 86,553

Iowa / 6,805 /3,078 / 81,080

Kansas / 3,383 / 2,365 / 50,324

Kentucky / 1,555 / 2,484 / 17,545

Louisiana / 2,514 / 669 / 19,368

Maine / 350 / 375 / 14,041

Maryland / 1,972 / 2,202 / 30,780

Massachusetts / 3,316 / 1,427 / 50,093

Michigan / 6,740 / 4,049 / 138,544

Minnesota / 5,582 / 4,770 / 99,569

Mississippi / 816 / 1,356 / 11,783

Missouri / 7,390 / 5,699 / 61,681

Montana / 2,261 / 823 / 26,582

Nebraska / 2,694 / 1,367 / 48,650

Nevada / 6,341 / 7,972 / 34,802

New Hampshire / 612 / 702 / 8,237

New Jersey / 2,082 / 1,140 / 71,450

New Mexico / 6,397 / 3,535 / 86,125

New York / 7,627 / 3,934 / 177,725

North Carolina / 3,646 / 6,443 / 25,343

North Dakota / 424 / 1,325 / 29,388

Ohio / 3,091 / 4,352 / 128.803

Oklahoma / 2,925 / 3,093 / 34,474

Oregon / 10,465 / 7,144 / 63,426

Pennsylvania / 4,740 / 3,773 / 97,807

Rhode Island / 145 / 79 / 6,598

South Carolina / 1,186 / 2,578 / 11,564 

South Dakota / 1,892 / 908 / 25,370

Tennessee / 4,498 / 3,907 / 23,976

Texas 16,679 / 19,900 / 155,610

Utah / 5,766 / 6,639 / 78,342

Vermont / 242 / 419 / 4,093

Virginia / 4,441 / 4,091 / 34.859

Washington / 12,844 / 10,675 / 120,355

West Virginia / 40 / 897 / 10,243

Wisconsin / 4,015 / 3,304 / 82,874

Wyoming / 2,501 / 1,526 / 17,266

Foreign country / 58,640 / NA / 1,078,602

– Source: U.S. Census Bureau estimates