A report that was recently published on the Aaron Becker website covers the topic of diaspora around the United States – or rather, how many people opt to leave the state in which they were born. The report also touches on what states have the most ‘transplants’ and where those ‘transplants’ come from. Numbers related to Colorado might surprise you.

Editor’s Note: In this article, the term ‘native’ refers to people who were born in Colorado, as this is the way the term is used in the source material.

According to the Aaron Becker report – which utilizes data from the US Census Bureau 2023 American Community Survey, 37.5 percent of those born in Colorado leave the state to go elsewhere. This ranks roughly ‘middle-of-the-road’ among all American states, with states where the highest diaspora takes place including Wyoming (54.4%), Alaska (53.9%), North Dakota (51.1%), and Vermont (45%) – all places known for being particularly cold.

On the other end of the spectrum, people tend to stay in the state in which they were born at much higher rates in the American South, the Midwest, and the Southwest. The top states where ‘natives’ stick around include Texas (just 18.1% of people born there leave), North Carolina (just 25.3%), and Georgia (26.2%). Also having a low number of ‘natives’ who leave are California (28.1%) and Wisconsin (27.6%).

Digging into the data behind where the most transplants are located around the U.S. is also pretty interesting – or in other words, what percentage of a given state’s population is made up of people moving to the state from somewhere else.

In Colorado, Aaron Becker reports that just 41.1 percent of local residents were born in the Centennial State – 58.9 percent of residents are transplants. This is among the lowest in the country in terms of ‘native’ population share, but on par with several states around the American West plus Florida. The state with the lowest share of ‘natives’ among the population, however, is Nevada at just 27.2 percent – a strong outlier. Florida and Arizona are the only other states under the 40 percent threshold, with 35.1 and 39.1 percent of their respective populations born locally. Colorado is quite close to that, though, with a similar share of ‘natives’ compared to many other states around the American West. In contrast, the state with the highest share of ‘natives’ among the local population is Louisiana at 77.1 percent, followed closely by Michigan at 75.8 percent and Ohio at 74.3 percent.

Another stat that Coloradans are sure to be interested in relates to where the ‘transplanted’ share of the population is coming from. As might be expected, California is the front runner, with roughly 394,800 people from the Golden State calling Colorado home per the 2023 survey. In 2023, Colorado’s population was estimated at about 5.9 million, meaning that Californians account for about seven percent of Colorado’s population.

It’s also worth touching on how these numbers relate to the number of people in Colorado who identify as American Indian or Alaska Native. According to the state, 74,129 people in Colorado identified solely as such in the 2020 census – about 1.3 percent of the state’s population that year. The number jumps to about 168,000 when including both people who identify solely as American Indian or Alaska Native or in combination with another race – about 2.8 percent of Colorado’s population.

Find the full report on diasporas from Aaron Becker here.

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