Douglas County has continued its slide in the U.S. Census numbers, posting an estimated population of 45,180 residents in 2008, down from 45,305 in 2007.
Estimates released on Thursday revealed that Douglas leads the list as the largest county posting a decrease and as the county with the largest decease in the number of people.
Mineral County had the largest percentage of population decrease, followed by Esmeralda and Pershing counties.
All three counties' populations combined would equal the population of the Gardnerville Ranchos.
In 2004, Douglas was Nevada's fourth largest county behind Clark, Washoe and Carson City. Its population peaked in 2005 at 45,679, but it had already been knocked to fifth place by rapidly growing Lyon County.
Douglas had dropped to Nevada's sixth largest county in population behind Elko.
According to the census, Lyon County is catching up to Carson City, with 53,022 people to Carson's 54,867.
Next year the official census will take over for the annual estimates.
Beginning late this month the census bureau will be sending out address canvassers as a part of early operations.
This workforce will walk or drive through neighborhoods to check that all addresses are in the bureau's database when the questionnaire is delivered in March 2010.
Officials said this early operation is vital to ensuring a complete and accurate count.
The address canvassing operation occurs as much as a year ahead of the official census day on April 1, 2010.
Address canvassing is the first large field operation for the 2010 census and it is designed to identify all housing units and other living quarters.
Listers use handheld computers with maps on them to verify and list structures, including the collection of GPS coordinates for each location.
All information collected by address canvassers and other census employees is kept confidential and cannot be shared with any other persons, institutions, or agencies.
For more information about the 2010 census visit www.census.gov.
