Topeka ? Douglas County’s population grew at a slower pace in 2017 than it had in the previous four years, according to new Census Bureau estimates, but it was still the largest growth of any county in Kansas other than neighboring Johnson County.

As of July 1, 2017, according to Census Bureau estimates released Thursday, Douglas County’s population stood at 120,793, an increase of 1.09 percent over the previous year. That was marginally less than the growth rates the county had posted each year since 2012.

Amy Miller, assistant planning director for the city of Lawrence, said she was not surprised by the latest numbers, which she said have been fairly consistent for about the last 15 years.

“I would say that it’s nothing new,” she said in a phone interview. “We’re very happy and pleased that we have a positive growth rate, and I think that we do our best to make good planning choices based on those growth trends.”

Cities and counties throughout the United States use the annual updates to make long-range planning decisions, such as anticipating future demand for public services, or the need to widen certain roadways or extend water and sewer lines into new areas.

But the latest numbers also show that there may be changes ahead for the organization of Douglas County government and how elections are administered at the local level.

That’s because under state law, in counties with more than 130,000 people, the Kansas secretary of state appoints a county election commissioner. In all other counties, that job is performed by the elected county clerk.

With Douglas County’s population now topping 120,000, and growing, it will likely cross that threshold soon — if not in the 2020 census, then probably by 2030.

Since the last official census in 2010, Douglas County has grown by 9,967 people, or about 9 percent. That’s roughly one-third the size of a Kansas House district.

Only Johnson and Sedgwick Counties posted larger growth numbers — in terms of actual people — over the seven-year period.

Each year, the Census Bureau releases population estimates for counties and metropolitan areas throughout the United States.

The reports estimate each county’s population as of July 1 of each year, detailing the estimated change from one year to the next and how much of that change was due to “natural growth” — the number of births minus deaths — versus migration in and out of the state. That includes both “domestic” migration within the United States and “international” migration to and from other nations.

In Douglas County, migration into the area has been a major factor contributing to its population growth, both over the last year and the last seven years. And an influx of people from other nations has been one of the single biggest components of that.

In 2017, the Census Bureau estimated there were 696 more international residents living in Lawrence than there were a year ago. Or, in other words, when you account for all the international residents who moved into the community during the last year versus all the international residents who moved out, the total is a gain of 696 people. When you do the calculation for the domestic population — Americans moving back and forth between Douglas County and some other place in the U.S. — there was a decline of 58 people.

Natural growth, meanwhile, accounted for an increase of 667 people over the year, as there were 1,318 births and only 651 deaths in the county.

The Census Bureau said there was a small amount of “residual” factors affecting the area’s population change that could not be attributed to any single factor.

For the seven-year period since the last official census, Douglas County saw an increase of 4,411 people through natural growth, but 5,593 through net in-migration.

For the state of Kansas as a whole, population growth has been essentially flat since 2010. Statewide growth has been less than 1 percent each year since 2012. For 2017, the growth rate was 0.2 percent.

There were 13,384 more births than deaths in Kansas in 2017, and international migration added another 6,198 people, according to the estimates. But nearly 8,000 people left Kansas to relocate elsewhere in the United States, the fifth consecutive year that domestic migration in Kansas has been in negative territory.

For the year, Geary County, home to Junction City and the U.S. Army’s Fort Riley military base, lost nearly 3.8 percent of its population, the third largest percentage decline of any county in the United States.

In fact, only 18 of the state’s 105 counties saw any net population growth over the seven-year period.

Since the 2000 census, some of the biggest declines in Kansas, on a percentage basis, have been in western Kansas where two counties, Morton and Lane, have already lost more than 10 percent of their population.

Morton County, in the southwest corner of the state, bordering both Colorado and Oklahoma, has seen a net loss of 493 of its residents since 2000, or 15.25 percent of its population.

Elk County, in southeast Kansas, also has lost just more than 13 percent of its population since 2010.