Atlanta welcomes North Georgia’s Lumpkin County to its Metropolitan Statistical Area.
This year, metro Atlanta officially added Lumpkin County to the region, expanding the Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) that now stretches to the North Georgia mountains.
The MSA designation, determined by the U.S. Census, refers to a core urban area plus adjacent counties that have a substantial community connection. This might be social or economic integration with the core, with one major measure being commuting patterns. This data-driven demarcation often brings in outlying counties like Lumpkin County to a region’s MSA. This year’s update also resulted in Central Georgia’s Lamar County transitioning out of the Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Alpharetta MSA.
According to a Census report released this March, Lumpkin County was one of the ten fastest-growing counties in the nation from 2021-22, with a growth rate of 5.8%. Lumpkin tied with neighboring Dawson County, with both ranking fourth in the nation. With this year’s county changes in its growing MSA, metro Atlanta adds approximately 15,000 people to its population. The addition of Lumpkin County also brings a higher-education institution to the region, the University of North Georgia’s Dahlonega campus.
Photo by @shawnmweidner
