Florida Community Ranked #1 For Growth In Nation

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WASHINGTON (CBSMiami/AP) — A Central Florida community west of Orlando was the fastest growing metro area in the nation last year.

New data released from the U.S. Census Bureau showed that the population of The Villages grew by 5.4 percent between July 1, 2013, and July 1, 2014.

But it's not just The Villages. Six Florida metro areas were among the 20 fastest-growing: The Villages, Cape Coral-Fort Myers, Naples-Immokalee-Marco Island, Orlando-Kissimmee-Sanford, North Port-Sarasota-Bradenton and Panama City.

This comes as Florida became the nation's third most-populous state in December, taking over the spot once held by New York.

Florida has been long known for retirees, beaches and vacationers. The influx of new residents was enough to offset the fact that there were more deaths than births in about half of the state's counties, the Census Bureau said. Florida averaged 803 new residents each day between July 1, 2013, and July 1, 2014, growing by 293,000 to reach 19.9 million during that time period, census data released in December showed.

New York went up by 51,000 to 19.7 million during that same period.

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