Boone is one of two Indiana counties in which the population is growing younger, the U.S. Census Bureau said Friday.
The median age of a Boone resident on July 1, 2015, was 38.7, according to the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey’s five-year estimate of the nation’s population. That means an equal number of residents were older and younger than 38.7.
Indiana’s median age was 37.2. The U.S. median was 37.7
Of Boone’s estimated 63,344 residents, 17,002 were younger than 18, and 8,084 were 65 or older, in 2015.
Whitestown was the youngest town in the county, with a median age of 30.4. The median age in Jamestown was 40, in Thorntown 39, in Lebanon 38.4 and in Zionsville 37.9.
Zionsville was the county’s most populous community with 26,296 residents, followed by Lebanon, 15,892, and Whitestown, 6,103,
Thorntown and Jamestown both lost population from 2010 to 2015. Thorntown shrank by 37 residents to 1,485. Jamestown lost 17 residents, to 942.
Wells County’s median age was 41.3 in 2014. Of that county’s 2015 population of 27,964, the Census Bureau said, 6,786 were younger than 18 and 4,877 were 65 and older. Bluffton, the county seat, had a population of 10,001, and a median age of 41.1.
Tippecanoe County was the state’s youngest, with a median age of 28.1, followed by Monroe, 28.7, and LaGrange, 31.7.
Brown County, at 48.1, Ohio County, at 46.7, and Tipton County, at 44.7, were Indiana’s oldest based on median ages, the Census Bureau said.
Sumter County in Florida, was the nation’s only county with a median population of 65 or older, the Census Bureau said. Two-thirds of its residents were above retirement age.
Florida had the highest percentage of its population at age 65 and over among states in 2015, at 19.4 percent, followed by Maine,18.8 percent, and West Virginia, 18.2 percent, the Census Bureau said. Alaska had the lowest percentage, at 9.9 percent, followed by Utah at 10.3 percent.
The population estimates were based on changes between April 1, 2010, and July 1, 2015.