#1Bay St. Louis
Hancock County9,290 in 2020·10,634 in 2025·+1,344 people
Each edition grades its towns against each other only.
Bay St. Louis, #1 on this list · Photo: Frank Kovalchek from Anchorage, Alaska, USA · CC BY 2.0Bay St. Louis has grown fastest of Mississippi’s 89 towns of 2,500+: up 14.5% from 9,290 residents in April 2020 to an estimated 10,634 in July 2025 (Census Bureau estimates). The typical town here changed −0.9%; 50 of the 89 lost residents.
Census Bureau population estimates, Vintage 2025: July 1, 2025 against the April 2020 base, both on January 2025 town lines (people a town annexed are in its base, not its growth). Estimates, not counts. Unincorporated communities (census-designated places) get no estimate, so they aren’t listed. A described list: no letters. How grades work
#19,290 in 2020·10,634 in 2025·+1,344 people
3,074 in 2020·3,500 in 2025·+426 people
#35,694 in 2020·6,459 in 2025·+765 people
Growth since 2020, highest first.
89 towns ranked. Not here? See why a town may be missing.
Bay St. Louis (Hancock County): it grew 14.5%, from 9,290 residents in April 2020 to an estimated 10,634 in July 2025. Gluckstadt (+13.9%) and Pass Christian (+13.4%) follow.
By the percent change in residents from the Census Bureau’s April 2020 estimates base to its latest July 1 estimate, highest first, on the exact change: two towns shown with the same tenth of a percent keep the order of their unrounded figures, and only an identical change shares a rank (T). The base is the 2020 Census count redrawn on today’s town lines, so a town that annexed land since 2020 changes only by births, deaths and moves, not by the people it took in. How grades work.
The list covers the towns TownRatings grades that had 2,500+ residents in the 2020 estimates base (89 in Mississippi). Census-designated places (unincorporated communities) have no Census Bureau estimates, so they never appear; a town incorporated since 2020, or one TownRatings merges with its twin township, isn’t listed either. Every town is on the Mississippi page.
Every list ranks the same 2,500+ towns, so a town’s rank means the same thing on each.