Alabama’s 10 fastest-growing cities in 2025

By Ramsey Archibald | rarchibald@al.comMost Alabama cities grew in 2025, but only a handful saw huge jumps.A few cities added thousands of people, while most added hundreds or fewer. And many places in Alabama lost people. [Can’t see the map? Click here.]Foley, a mid-sized city in Baldwin County, was Alabama’s fastest-growing major city for the second year in a row. It added about 2,200 people, good for a growth rate of roughly 7.8%. That was the fastest rate in 2025 among all Alabama cities with at least 10,000 residents.RELATED: Nearly half of new Alabama residents live in these 2 north Alabama countiesThis is all according to new population estimates released Thursday by the U.S. Census Bureau. Madison, in north Alabama, added the most total people of any city in the state, and had a growth rate of 6.5%. That was the second highest growth rate behind Foley. [Can’t see the list? Click here.]Madison and Foley are members of two of the fastest-growing metro areas not only in Alabama, but in the nation. The Huntsville metro area ranked No. 6 nationally for population growth in 2025, helped by big gains in Madison and in Huntsville itself. Foley is a central city in the Daphne-Fairhope-Foley metro in Baldwin County. That metro was 11th on the national list. Athens, another city within the greater Huntsville metro, was third on Alabama’s fastest-growing list. Athens grew by 4.8%. Pike Road, near Montgomery, was fourth on the list, followed by a pair of smaller Birmingham-area suburbs,Chelsea and Calera. On the other end of the spectrum, Selma remained Alabama’s fastest shrinking city, a title it’s held for most of the last decade. Once home to nearly 30,000 residents, there are now just 16,000 residents in Selma. [Can’t see the list? Click here.]With a few small breaks, Ramsey Archibald has been working for AL.com in some form or another for more than a decade, including starting off as a high school sports call center clerk and copy desk intern back...