Los Gatos Adds 241 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? What about parking? Does a larger population mean fewer spots when you head downtown?

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

Either way you look at it, Los Gatos' population is growing.

The California Department of Finance released population estimate numbers for January 2012 today 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.

Los Gatos saw an increase in its population base by 241 residents or a .8 percent increase since January 2011. The town comes in as the 239th largest municipality in California. By comparison, its neighbor Campbell gained 272 residents and ranks 201st 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.