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Metro Area Factsheet: Harrisburg-Lebanon-Carlisle, Pennsylvania MSA

Summary Metro Area Data (and Source)
Population (2006 CB est.):	652,263
Population (2000 Census):	629,401
Foreign-born Population (2006 FAIR est)::	25,235
Foreign-born Population (2000 Census):	20,449
Share Foreign Born (2006 FAIR est.):	3.9%
Share Foreign Born  (2000 Census):	3.2%
Immigrant Settlement 1991-98 (INS):	4,633
Population Projection 2025 (FAIR):	730,200

METRO AREA POPULATION
The population of the Harrisburg-Lebanon-Carlisle Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) was estimated by the Census Bureau at 652,263 residents as of July 2006. That was an increase of 3.6 percent since the 2000 Census and 0.8 percent above 2005.

According to the 2006 Census Bureau estimate, the Harrisburg-Lebanon-Carlisle MSA's population had increased since July 2000 because of net domestic migration (an annual average of about 1,705 more native-born residents arriving than leaving), natural change (an annual average of about 1,300 more births than deaths) and net international migration (about 955 more foreign-born residents arriving than leaving). Therefore, immigration was the smallest component of population change, but it accounted directly for more than one-fourth (26.3%) of the metro area's population increase over that period.

The metro area is composed of the counties of Cumberland (34.7% of the area's population in 2006), Dauphin (39% of the population), Lebanon (19.5%) and Perry (6.9%).

According to the 2000 Census, the population of the Harrisburg-Lebanon-Carlisle Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) was 629,401. That was a seven percent increase from the 587,986 residents in the 1990 Census. During the previous decade, the population of the MSA increased by 5.9 percent from 555,158 in 1980.

FOREIGN-BORN POPULATION
The increase in the foreign-born population since 2000 would put it in mid-2006 at about 25,235 residents, i.e., 3.9 percent of the overall population. This was a 6-year increase of 23.4 percent in the foreign-born population compared to a three percent increase in the native-born population.

Immigration also contributes to population growth through the children born to immigrants in this country. Nationally the share of births to the foreign-born is about double their share of the population. A 7.8 percent share of the metro area’s current births is large enough to account for about 575 births a year. Combining the increase in the foreign-born population and estimated immigrant births suggests that immigration may be adding as many as 1,530 persons to the metro area’s population annually, i.e., more than the two-fifths (42.1%) of the overall average annual population increase in the area.

The 2000 census recorded 20,449 foreign-born residents in Harrisburg-Lebanon-Carlisle metro area. That was a 3.2 percent share of the overall population, which was lower than the share for the state (4.1%). The 2000 data showed an increase of 71.6 percent in the immigrant population since 1990, which compared with a 5.7 percent increase in the native-born population (which includes children born to immigrants) over the same period. That meant that immigration accounted directly for 20.6 percent of the overall population increase of the metro area.

In 2000, the Census recorded that more than two-fifths (45.4%) of the metro area's foreign-born population had entered since 1990. This was higher than the rate for the state overall (41.1%). Nearly half (49.8%) of the foreign-born residents had become naturalized U.S. citizens. This was lower than the rate for the state overall (50.6%).

Another indicator of the impact of the foreign-born population may be seen in data on residents who speak a language other than English at home. In the metro area in 2000, the share of other-than-English speakers at home (age 5 and older) was 7.1 percent. Nearly two-fifths (38.4%) of those persons admitted to speaking English less than very well.

In the 1990 Census, the foreign-born share of the metro area's population in 1990 was two percent, or 11,961 foreign-born residents. In 1990, about 3.2 percent of Pennsylvania's immigrants were located in the Harrisburg-Lebanon-Carlisle metro area.

LEGAL IMMIGRATION
A study released by the Center for Immigration Studies in October 2001 indicated that there were 4,633 legal immigrants who indicated that they intended to settle in the Harrisburg-Lebanon-Carlisle metropolitan area between FY'91-'98. This number did not include persons granted legal immigrant status as a result of the 1986 amnesty for illegal aliens. The ten countries that supplied the largest number of these new immigrants are as shown below.

POPULATION INCREASE AND SPRAWL
A study published by NumbersUSA in 2001 that weighed sprawl factors in large metropolitan areas found that three-fifths (30.3%) of the additional 71.4 square miles consumed by the Harrisburg urban area between 1970-90 was attributable to population increase. The other factor studied was per capita land use. The Harrisburg urbanized area is larger than the city but smaller than the metropolitan statistical area (covering a population of 292,904 in 1990).

POPULATION PROJECTION 2025
The current rate of population change between 2000-06, if continued, would result in a metro area population in 2025 of 730,200. That is an increase of 11.9 percent from the 2000 population.