The California Department of Finance's report on state population numbers shows that 409,000 residents came to California in 2008, raising the state's population to 38,293,000 as of Jan. 1 of this year.
Of California's 480 cities, 453 showed populations gains, five experienced no change and 20 lost population, according to the report.
In Lake County, the county as a whole posted a modest population gain in 2008 of 0.3 percent, with population rising from 63,805 to 64,025.
Outside of the incorporated areas of Lakeport and Clearlake, population actually declined by 0.2, dropping from 44,592 to 44,489, according to the report.
Lakeport posted the largest growth numbers in the county, with the number of residents rising from 5,024 to 5,146, for a 2.4 percent increase.
In Clearlake, the percentage population growth was smaller, at 1.4 percent. In 2008 the city's number of residents grew from 14,189 to 14,390.
Other California population facts from the report:
• The city of Los Angeles, California's largest city, has reached a population of 4,065,585. Los Angeles grew by over 43,000 persons during the year.
• San Diego, the state's second-largest city, has a population of 1,353,993 and added over 20,000 persons in 2008.
• The city of San Jose exceeded 1 million in population in 2008, adding 21,585 new residents during the year to reach 1,006,892, making it the 10th city in the United States to exceed 1 million persons.
• The city of Riverside became the 12th California city to exceed 300,000 (it's current population is 300,430).
• Fresno has replaced Long Beach as the state's fifth largest city. Fresno was estimated to have 495,913 residents, while Long Beach came in with a population of 492,682.
• There are now 69 cities in California with a population exceeding 100,000.
• Sand City in Monterey County (population 312) was the state's fastest growing city on a percentage basis, increasing by 4.7 percent. The next four fastest growing cities were Albany in Alameda County (4.5 percent), Calipatria in Imperial County (4.5 percent), Tehachapi in Kern County (4.4 percent), and Woodlake in Tulare County (4.1 percent).
• The biggest numeric increases typically occurred in some of the state's largest cities – Los Angeles (43,135), San Jose (21,585), San Diego (20,376), Fresno (10,578) and San Francisco (10,195).
• Since the April 1, 2000 census, the top four fastest growing California cities all have more than doubled in size, including Lincoln in Placer County (258 percent), Beaumont and Murrieta in Riverside County (185 percent and 127 percent respectively), and Brentwood in Contra Costa County (123 percent).
• Two new incorporations occurred in Riverside County in 2008: Wildomar and Menifee.
• California's housing growth continued a recent trend by declining once again from the previous year. Since peaking in 2005, when the state was estimated to have added 197,707 new housing units, there has been a steady reduction in residential construction. In 2006, the state added 172,604 units; in 2007, there were 131,912 units built, then last year only 86,745 were constructed – the smallest change since 1998.
• The 2008 relocation of California's prison population among various facilities within California, and to other states, resulted in the overall number of incarcerated persons declining for the second year in a row, down by 5,081 to 185,153 inmates statewide. The largest prison declines occurred in Vacaville (-1,033) in Solano County, Avenal (-807) in Kings County, Chino (-571) in San Bernardino County and Blythe (-495) in Riverside County. Tehachapi (+273) in Kern County, Ione (+259) in Amador County, and Victorville (+187) in San Bernardino County gained prison population.
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