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ST. LOUIS — The fast-growing Orlando and Charlotte metropolitan areas now have more people than St. Louis, which is continuing to shrink under the weight of an aging population and the continuing departure of residents.

New census estimates released Thursday show the St. Louis region, after losing about 3,250 people last year, slipped to just under 2.8 million people as of July 1, 2023, settling into 23rd place among the nation’s top metros.

Meanwhile, Orlando, Florida, added nearly 55,000 residents and approached 2.82 million residents to claim the spot as the 21st-largest region in the country. And Charlotte, North Carolina, now the 22nd-largest urban area, grew to more than 2.8 million people after adding 50,000 residents in a year.

“It doesn’t surprise me at all,” Ness Sandoval, a St. Louis University sociology professor who studies demographics. “This was inevitable that this was going to happen. The fact that they both happened in the same year is pretty remarkable given where they were at in 1970.”

Rather than anemic growth as in previous decades, the St. Louis region as a whole appears now to be losing population, with census figures estimating some 23,000 fewer residents here than were counted in the 2020 Census. Particularly concerning for the region is that more people died than were born here, a phenomenon known as a “demographic winter” that began post-pandemic, Sandoval said. Whereas the region has long lost residents to other cities, it has in past years grown its population naturally and attracted enough immigrants to offset the decline.

“The fact that this is another year that (St. Louis) is in a demographic winter, it just points to the fact that it’s going to be difficult going forward to grow,” Sandoval said. “It cannot grow naturally. In order for it to grow, it has to grow through migration, and there’s no evidence from this data set that’s been published that St. Louis has experienced an increase in domestic migration.”

Leading the region’s decline was once again the urban core of St. Louis, which recorded 4,400 fewer residents than 2022. The city has lost nearly 20,000 residents since the 2020 Census and is estimated to now have just under 282,000 people.

St. Louis County, too, lost about 3,700 residents, continuing a slide of roughly 17,000 people since 2020 to an estimated population of 987,000. The Metro East counties of St. Clair and Madison also recorded drops of 1,247 people and 820 people, respectively.

Growth in exurban counties — Franklin, Jefferson, Lincoln, St. Charles and Warren — was not enough to offset population losses closer to the urban core. St. Charles County added almost 2,900 residents last year to grow to 416,659 people. Jefferson County grew by more than 2,000 people, and Lincoln County added 1,500 residents.

“We all know that St. Louis has lost considerable population, but I think what we forget about is the county’s population has been relatively stagnant,” said Joe Blanner, an area lawyer and co-founder of industry nonprofit Construction Forum who recently published a commentary on the region’s stagnant population growth. “Sure, St. Charles County, Franklin County have experienced growth, but a lot of that growth is just people moving within the region, not new people being brought into the region. Businesses that relocate to areas are looking to regions that are growing.”

Regional business group Greater St. Louis Inc. said the census figures were expected and that the group was formed three years ago to better address major regional issues such as population decline. Greater St. Louis Inc. pointed to recent and corporate investment as reasons for hope.

“These major economic wins show that by working together as a metro and speaking with a unified voice, we are winning,” the group said in a statement. “But there is still much work to do to get our population growing, and we must continue to act with urgency to win this decade and reverse these trends by 2030.”

St. Louis population lagged behind peers such as Kansas City, Indianapolis and Cincinnati, which all recorded growth of over 12,000 people. All attracted both immigrants and existing U.S. residents plus had natural increases due to births.

The U.S. Census Bureau estimated 1,500 more people died than were born in the St. Louis metro from July 2022 through June, the third year the region has recorded deaths outpacing births. Much of the natural population decline was in the Illinois suburbs, while the Missouri side of the area saw a small increase in natural population, led by St. Charles and Lincoln counties and St. Louis city.

But St. Louis County, the largest in the state, recorded 300 more deaths than births and recorded nearly 3,500 more people moved out than in. St. Louis County’s trends are due to both an aging population and a governmental structure where dozens of municipalities make it difficult to grow the county’s population with dense and affordable housing, a necessity for young families, Sandoval said.

“If the municipalities continue to stop housing projects, it will be very difficult for families to come, it will be very difficult for families to stay who want to buy a house if these projects continue to be voted down,” he said.

On the bright side, Sandoval said the region’s population loss from deaths and out-migration are smaller than the year before, suggesting perhaps the trends are slowing.

“It’s not back-to-back years of really big losses,” he said. “But they’re still really difficult numbers.”

Blanner hopes St. Louis area leaders acknowledge the severity of the population decline issue and commit to working together to begin reversing it.

“It’s something that we need to pay full attention to,” he said. “I don’t think we fully grasp the gravity of the problem.”