US Territories Could Lose Up to 61% of Population by 2100

Newsweek · Giulia Carbonaro · 2026-11-06 14:52 UTC

An expected population collapse in four U.S. unincorporated territories could leave these islands scrambling to continue running.

Plunging birth rates and strong migration to the United States will lead American Samoa, a self-governing, unincorporated U.S. territory southwest of Hawaii, to lose 61 percent of its 2026 population by 2100, according to new projections by the Census Bureau.

It is the biggest population drop among the four U.S. island territories where the agency says population will decline by then compared to this year, including the U.S. Virgin Islands (down 41 percent), Guam (down 38 percent), and the Northern Mariana Islands (down 17 percent).

These territories “are undergoing long-term population decline driven by falling fertility and persistent out‑migration,” the agency wrote, suggesting that this is going to get dramatically worse by the end of the century.

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