Cupertino Adds 357 Residents

What's in a number? And why care about the size of your population? Does it mean a bigger tax base? Does it mean longer lines at the grocery store? 

Or does a larger population mean more people to call neighbors, an added classmate for your child or another pair of eyes to keep watch when you're not home?

Either way you look at it, Cupertino's population is growing.

The Department of Finance released on Tuesday population estimate numbers for January 2012 as well as state rankings for the 482 cities within California.

Each city was ranked by population size and of the 482 cities, 412 saw gains while 68 had a decrease in population.

Cupertino saw an increase in its population base by 357 residents or a .6 percent increase since January 2011. Cupertino comes in as the 144th largest city in California. By comparison, its neighbor Sunnyvale gained 1,998 residents and ranks 49th largest city in the state.

Below are some charts comparing our local cities and the changes, and rankings made.

Morgan Hill had the largest change in population within Santa Clara County, with a 2.3 percent increase.

Monte Sereno had the smallest change in population within Santa Clara County, with a 0.4 percent increase.

Information was gathered from the reports released by the California Department of Finance.