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   “It used to be merely a retirement magnet for Midwest seniors,” said William Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank. “Now it’s also a front door for immigrants from Mexico and an escape hatch for Californians seeking affordable housing.”

   At the other end of the scale, Louisiana lost nearly 220,000 people — more than any other state — in the year following Hurricane Katrina.

   Arizona led the nation with a population growth rate of 3.6 percent in the past year, followed by Nevada, Idaho, Georgia and Texas.

   Arizona added about 32,000 immigrants in the past year. It added four times that many people who were relocating from other states. The biggest donor state: California.

   “Every area where there’s private land there’s some form of development going on or being considered,” said Merrill Wuerch, who owns Century 21 real estate offices in Phoenix and Sierra Vista. “I’ve been in the business 24 years and I have never seen anything like this, what we went through.”

   Wuerch said Arizona’s real estate market has cooled after sizzling for several years. Still, he said, the market remains stronger than in other parts of the country, with growing medical and high-tech industries providing the jobs, and the sunshine providing the allure.

   The pace of development has strained Arizona’s resources and preoccupied local officials, said Tom Rex, associate director of the Center for Competitiveness and Prosperity Research at Arizona State University.

   “All they can think about is getting the sewer lines out to the new housing and getting the roads in,” he said.

   The growth pattern means Arizona and Florida will probably add two House seats when congressional districts are redrawn following the 2010 Census, said Clark Bensen of Polidata, a Virginia firm that consults on political redistricting. Texas could add four seats and several other states could add one, he said.

   Bensen projects New York and Ohio to lose two seats apiece, and several other states, including Louisiana, to lose one.

   The Census Bureau estimates annual state population totals using local records of births and deaths, IRS records of people moving within the United States and census statistics on immigrants. The bureau does not distinguish between legal and illegal immigrants, and most experts believe that the number of illegal immigrants is underestimated.

   Among the findings for 2006:

—Texas gained the most people, about 580,000, followed by Florida, California, Georgia and Arizona.

—North Carolina broke into the top 10 in total population, nudging New Jersey to 11th.

—Four states and the District of Columbia lost population: Louisiana, New York, Rhode Island and Michigan.

   Many other states lost people who relocated elsewhere in the country, increasing their populations only through births and immigration.

   The South had a net gain of a half million people relocating there from other parts of the U.S., while the Northeast had a net loss of 375,000 people and the Midwest lost 184,000, according to the census estimates.

   The West had a net gain of 53,000 people from other parts of the U.S., even though California lost nearly 300,000 people to other states.

   Texas passed Florida as the top destination for people moving within the U.S., in part from people fleeing the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

   Other relatively affordable southern states such as Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee also had significant increases in people moving there from other states.

   “Good climate and affordability seem to be the draws for Americans this decade,” said Frey, the demographer.

   In the Northeast, New York, New Jersey and Massachusetts continued to lose large numbers of people to other states. In the Midwest, the big losers were Illinois, Michigan and Ohio.

   Louisiana had been losing people to other states for years before Hurricane Katrina hit, though the storm exacerbated the problem, said Elliott Stonecipher, a veteran Louisiana demographer and pollster. Last year’s loss amounted to nearly 5 percent of the state’s people.

   “The numbers make it clear that Katrina has had an incredibly negative effect,” Stonecipher said. “But pre-Katrina, Louisiana was already in trouble.”

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On The Net:

Census Bureau: www.census.gov