The Census Bureau released its annual Christmas present to demographers this morning: state-by-state population estimates as of six months ago.

The US as a whole went up by 2.6 million people from 2008 to 2009, or 0.9 percent. Massachusetts ranked 25th (26th if you count Washington, DC) in population gain, rising by just about 50,000 people or 0.8 percent. That’s the biggest increase in the Northeast outside of Delaware.

The only three states to lose population were Maine, Michigan, and Rhode Island. Our other neighbors lagged far below the Bay State in growth: Connecticut ranked 40st, New Hampshire 45th, New York 42rd, and Vermont 47th.

The fastest-growing state was Wyoming, followed by Utah and Texas. The state of Florida, a growth powerhouse before the home-mortgage meltdown, ranked 31st, with a below-average growth rate of 0.6 percent.

The population gain in Massachusetts is attributable to a “natural increase” (births minus deaths) of 22,487 people. More notable is that we gained a net of 24,518 from international migration and a net of 3,614 from domestic migration. The latter may not sound like much, but it’s a change from the many years in which more Americans moved out of Massachusetts than moved in. From 2000 to 2009, the Bay State has lost a net of 277,000 people to other states, so the most recent data represent only a slight step out of the population hole.