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Wisconsin Watch partners with Gigafact to produce fact briefs — bite-sized fact checks of trending claims. Read our methodology to learn how we check claims.

No.

Madison’s population will still be less than half that of Milwaukee in 2040, according to official population projections by the University of Wisconsin-Madison from 2013. The 2040 projections estimated a Madison population of 281,150, compared with 627,400 for Milwaukee.

A regional study from 2022 projected larger growth figures for Madison, with estimates of 306,521 for 2035 and 345,675 for 2050. That’s still much smaller than the state’s largest city.

Nonetheless, Madison and Dane County have shown rapid growth in recent years.

2023 estimates show that Madison currently had the fastest population growth since 2020 — both proportionally and numerically — of Wisconsin’s most populous cities.

Madison was estimated to have gained over 12,000 people while Milwaukee was estimated to have lost 2,000. In addition, the estimates showed Dane County — where Madison is located — has faster population growth than Milwaukee, Ozaukee, Washington, and Waukesha — the counties constituting the Milwaukee metro area.

This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.

Sources

Wisconsin Department of Administration: Wisconsin population projections by the University of Wisconsin, Madison

Capital Area Regional Planning Commission: Wisconsin population projection by Woods & Poole

Wisconsin Department of Administration: Demographic Services Center’s 2023 population estimates: Wisconsin’s population increases modestly

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Jacob Alabab-Moser joined as Wisconsin Watch’s fact checker in September 2022, as part of the effort by The Gigafact Project in partnership with different state-level news outlets to combat misinformation in the 2022 midterm elections. Jacob has several years of experience as a fact checker and research assistant at a variety of organizations, including at The Gigafact Project. He holds a BA from Brown University and is pursuing a MSc from the London School of Economics and Political Science.