Gwinnett County becomes second county in Georgia with a population over a million

GWINNETT COUNTY, Ga. — For the first time ever, Gwinnett County’s population crossed one million!

This comes as more people are flocking to metro Atlanta.

Channel 2′s Gwinnett County bureau chief Matt Johnson was live in Peachtree Corners on Thursday.

More than five million people live in metro Atlanta, and those numbers continue to climb, especially in the suburbs of Gwinnett County.

Now, Gwinnett and Fulton are the two counties with a million people and the growth is not slowing down.

“Gwinnett County seemed to have the best options,” said Stenny Thomas with Cinematic Strategies.

Thomas moved to Gwinnett County with his wife in 2021 to grow his videography business and raise a family.

“People look out for each other more here, and so you just feel like it’s a little bit safer,” said Thomas.

Mike Carnathan with the Atlanta Regional Commission studied population growth and came up with the estimates.

“You have to create places that people want to live in. And Gwinnett has done exactly that,” said Carnathan.

Metro Atlanta is now at 5.2 million people.

“Metro Atlanta has been really one of the national leaders in job growth over the past few years,” said Carnathan.

With the growth expected to continue, the plan for the future hasn’t stopped.

Gwinnett voters will decide whether to pass a $17 billion transit expansion project in November.

20 years from now, the former Gwinnett Place Mall is set to become a major live, work and play destination called Global Villages.

“Gwinnett is seeing the result of decades of planning,” he said.

Thomas says he loves everything to do in Gwinnett, even though sometimes it takes a bit longer to get there.

“There’s more places to eat, there’s more things to do, but at the cost of, of course, you know higher congestion,” he said.

The Atlanta Regional Commission says Fulton and Gwinnett are way ahead of the third and fourth biggest counties.

It may be another 25 years until another country hits a million people.