Nashville is the 21st most populous city in the United States. The 2024 Census estimate puts the city proper at 704,963 people. That’s Davidson County minus the handful of small incorporated towns within its borders. The metro area is a different story: the Nashville–Davidson–Murfreesboro–Franklin MSA has crossed 2.15 million people, making it the 35th-largest metro in the country.
Those two numbers matter because Nashville operates as a consolidated city-county government. When someone says “Nashville,” they usually mean all of Davidson County, 504 square miles of land. That’s why Nashville ranks among the largest US cities by land area even though its raw headcount sits below cities like Denver or Las Vegas.
The Growth Trajectory
Nashville has grown in every single decade since 1920, with one minor exception in 1960. The city added roughly 100 people per day to its net population during the peak growth years of the mid-2010s, a pace that drew national headlines. Between 2010 and 2020, the metro gained 343,319 residents.
From 2020 to 2024, the metro added another 136,000 people, a 6.4% increase, more than double the national growth rate of 3% over the same period. That growth is now coming from three sources in roughly equal measure: domestic migration (people arriving from California, New York, Illinois, and other high-cost states), international migration (about 28% of total growth), and natural increase from births.
Where the People Come From
The domestic migration story gets the most press, but international migration is quietly a large factor. Nashville’s foreign-born population has tripled since 1990 and now sits at roughly 110,000, about 13% of the city, matching the national average but far exceeding Tennessee’s state average of 5–6%.
Nashville is home to the largest Kurdish community in the United States, estimated at 15,000–20,000 people. The metro also has substantial Somali, Vietnamese, Laotian, Bhutanese, and Mexican communities. Over 140 languages are spoken in Metro Nashville Public Schools.
Suburban Growth Is Outpacing the City
A notable pattern in recent data: the suburban counties are growing faster than Davidson County itself. Williamson County (Franklin, Brentwood) and Rutherford County (Murfreesboro, Smyrna) are among the fastest-growing counties in Tennessee. Lebanon, just east of Nashville in Wilson County, grew nearly 24% from 2020 to 2023.
This means people are counting themselves as “Nashville” in casual conversation while technically living 20 to 40 miles from downtown. The broader metro population heading toward 3.18 million by 2060, per Woods & Poole Economics projections, will be increasingly suburban.
What the Numbers Don’t Capture
Nashville’s 16.9 million annual visitors (2024 data) temporarily inflate the city’s functional population on any given day, especially on weekends when Broadway draws tens of thousands. The city’s hospitality infrastructure, hotels, bars, restaurants, is sized for a city much larger than 700,000 people. That’s a feature for some; a source of frustration for locals who just want to find parking on a Saturday.
The bottom line: city proper, around 705,000. Metro area, 2.15 million and climbing. By any measure, Nashville is a mid-large American city moving fast.
Sources
- U.S. Census Bureau, QuickFacts: Nashville-Davidson metropolitan government, 2024 estimates
- Nashville metropolitan area – Wikipedia (January 2026)
- Tennessee State Data Center, University of Tennessee, “Nashville Rebounds” (2024)
- Nashville Convention & Visitors Corp, 2024 Tourism Impact Report
- Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce, 2024 Regional Economic Report