Between 2005 and 2006 alone it swelled by 13%.
And to prove how busy the town has become, the council even measured local sewage flow: in the year to April 2006 it swelled by more than 10%.
Best known for the Birdsville Races, the event sees it swell by thousands of residents for a few days of each year.
The banking system looks big on paper but it is swollen by foreign banks with offices in Dublin and loans abroad.
At the present rate of progress, the Office for National Statistics expects it to swell by 4.6 million during the 2010s – "the biggest growth in the last 50 years".
It was swelled by a series of acquisitions, including NatWest in 1999 and US bank Charter One in 2004 and by the time of its collapse its balance sheet was bigger than the entire UK GDP.
The crackle in the air, the sense of imminent history in the making and the euphoria of being there to see it happen swelled by the minute as post-time approached.
Its latest available figures, from 2014, reveal it swelled Tory coffers by £146,600 last year, despite making a profit of just £767,000 after tax.
10 Indeed, not long ago, when it had been swollen by heavy rains, it backed up and rose in flood and spread far out over p325 the land and caused irreparable damage.
17 So by reason of this water the Cydnus rose in flood, for the streams kept pouring their water into it, since it was close to the mountains, and it was further swollen by heavy rains which fell at the same time; consequently the river flooded and immediately wiped out completely all the suburbs which were situated to the south of the city.
The final number is not yet known because it will be swollen by last-minute applications.
