More than 73K move to Central Florida in 2016

ORLANDO, Fla. — Roughly 73,000 people moved into Central Florida in the last year, according to new data released by the U.S. Census Bureau.

Megan Pardick told Channel 9 anchor Jamie Holmes that she moved to Orlando from North Carolina because her husband got a job with the Orlando Magic.

"I like living 40 minutes from the beach one way, and 40 minutes to Disney the other way. There's a lot of stuff for a family,” said Pardick.

The Orlando metro area gained some 59,000 people in the last year, many of them from Southern California and New York.

In fact, 20,000 more people moved to Orlando within the last year than moved to New York City.

"Orlando had the largest growth rate in terms of population when you look at the top 30 markets in the United States,” said Laureen Martinez of Orlando Economic Partnerships.

Orlando is also adding 1,000 new jobs a week. Numbers crunchers said much of that is because the University of Central Florida talent pool is attractive, construction is booming and there was a bigger increase in white-collar work in the area than even tourism jobs.

"That includes things like management, legal, some IT in there as well. That is surprising to a lot of people,” Martinez said.

Central Florida also saw more than 17,000 people move here from outside the domestic U.S., many of them from Puerto Rico.

Four of the top 25 fastest-growing metro areas in the country are in Central Florida.

If you add up the number of new people who moved to The Villages, the Daytona Beach area and Lakeland/Winter Haven in Polk County, along with Orlando, the number surpasses 73,000 new people. Basically that's an entire new city created in just the last year.

Click here for an interactive map to see where much of the population growth has come from in the U.S.

Cox Media Group