These Montana Towns Lost A Big Share Of Their Population

The Montana Towns Losing The Biggest Share Of Their Population

People keep moving to Montana, but that doesn't mean every Montana town is growing.

In fact, there are plenty of communities going in the opposite direction, with some losing a surprisingly large share of their population from one year to the next.

A Small Population Loss Can Be Huge For A Montana Town

We've talked before about which Montana towns are growing the fastest, and when people talk about a changing Montana, that's where a lot of the attention tends to go.

But part of what makes Montana so unique is all of the small towns that are scattered across the state. So we wanted to look at which Montana towns are losing the biggest share of their population, not just which ones are losing the most people.

Yes, that means there are going to be some pretty tiny places on this list. But there's a reason for that.

A town like Billings could lose 200 people in a year and barely make a dent in its overall population. If a town only has a few thousand residents to begin with, though, losing 200 people can represent a pretty significant chunk of the community.

Scott Olson, Getty Images

Some Of These Montana Towns Are Smaller Than You Might Expect

That's why we wanted to look at the difference between raw population loss and the percentage of a town's population that disappeared.

The result is a list that includes some Montana communities you may not even recognize. We're talking about the kind of places where you might have to pull up Google Maps just to figure out exactly where they are.

So take a moment and scroll through the gallery to see which Montana towns experienced the biggest percentage drops in population. We've included the actual population numbers, too, so you can see the scale of the change for yourself.