Hundreds of thousands of people left Illinois last year.

New statistics from the U.S. Census Bureau show how many people moved in 2023 ("migration flows statistics") from state-to-state.

The data shows nearly 300,000 residents left Illinois last year and it also shows where they've headed off to.

Illinois' Population Is Continuously Dropping

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Census figures show that the amount of people leaving Illinois outpaces the amount of people moving into the state. Since the start of the decade, over 260,000 people have moved out of Illinois.

Where They're Going

The latest data shows the top 5 states Illinoisans are moving to are:

5. California (21,982)

4. Texas (24,181)

3. Wisconsin (26,943)

2. Florida (27,109)

1. Indiana (29,426)

Obviously the Census doesn't give individual answers as to why these people packed up and left the Land of Lincoln (you're welcome to speculate if you'd like). Indiana and Wisconsin make sense, as maybe people just want to move somewhere that's close enough to Chicago and Illinois but just across state lines. With Illinois' other neighbor Missouri, more people left Illinois to move into Missouri than the other way around. The moves to Florida, California, and Texas could show that Illinois residents really just want to be warmer.

Only one state had no reported outbound moves from Illinois last year: Vermont. The state with the lowest number of people moving there from Illinois was Wyoming.

Interestingly, the top inbound movers to Illinois are also some of it's top states for people to move to. Last year, Illinois had 11,555 people move in from Indiana and 14,135 moved to Illinois from Wisconsin.

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