Watertown is growing faster than any other city or town in the state, registering a 3 percent jump in residents from 2013 to 2014, new figures from the US Census show.
Other Boston suburbs, Everett and Chelsea, were not far behind, with year-to-year population hikes of 2.6 percent.
But it’s not just communities ringing Boston that are growing — so, too, is the state’s biggest city. Boston welcomed 5,967 new residents, increasing its population by just shy of 1 percent.
Cambridge also saw significant growth, with a 1.8 percent increase in the estimated number of residents.
The population gains came as more housing became available in some of these communities. The US Census recorded more than 5,000 new units in Middlesex and Suffolk counties, for example, in 2014.
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Massachusetts’ total population grew by about 0.5 percent in 2014, echoing several years of consistent growth, according to population estimates dating to 2010.
Most of the cities and towns that exceeded the statewide growth rate were in Eastern Massachusetts. In all, 263 municipalities saw population increases.
The communities that lost residents in 2014 were largely in Western Massachusetts or on Cape Cod, according to the estimates.