WASHINGTON, Aug. 5 — Though immigrants kept California's population rising in the latter half of the 1990's, for the first time more people left the state than moved in from other states, the Census Bureau says.

Four reports being released on Wednesday offered the most comprehensive look so far at domestic migration in 2000.

Only New York, which lost 874,000 more residents to other states than it took in, had a bigger net decline than California, which lost 755,000. Illinois, New Jersey and Pennsylvania also lost more than they gained.

The figures count only gains and losses between states. California had a big gain when foreign immigrants were counted.

The longtime retirement destination of Florida had the biggest net increase, with 607,000 more people coming in than leaving. Warm-weather states with fast-growing economies in the late 1990's rounded out the top five: Georgia, North Carolina, Arizona and Nevada.

William Frey, a demographer with the Brookings Institution in Washington, said the California exodus could be a sign that residents were fed up with high housing prices and sprawl.

Analysts also noted that although the San Francisco Bay area's economy boomed in the late 1990's, Southern California's economy slumped.

The biggest destination for Californians was neighboring Nevada, where 199,000 settled.

"People are leaving urbanism and wanting to move where there is more space or more affordable housing," Mr. Frey said.

Over all, California drew about 1.4 million residents from other states from 1995 to 2000 but lost 2.2 million of its residents.

Spurred by immigration, however, the state population still rose 14 percent, or 4.1 million people, from 1990 to 2000 to nearly 33.9 million. Its foreign-born population rose by more than one-third to almost 8.9 million.

The state lost more residents than it gained for the first time since the government started keeping track of domestic migration statistics in 1940, a Census Bureau analyst, Jason Schachter said.

The trend may be in large part because of immigrants using California as a springboard to find work in other parts of the country, said Dowell Myers, a demographer at the University of Southern California.

The 2000 census showed Hispanic population growth in large cities as well as small towns and rural areas across the country, especially in the Midwest and South.

"California has been the recipient of much of the nation's immigration," Mr. Myers said. "The only way you can balance that is by exporting people out of state. These numbers should in no way be attributed as a setback to California."

The report was based on people's responses to the 2000 census long-form question, which asked if the respondent had lived in the same address five years earlier. Those who responded "no" were then asked to say from where they had moved.

Over all, of the 262 million people 5 and older in 2000, 120 million, or 45.9 percent, had moved in the previous five years. That is down slightly from the 46.7 percent of people in the 1990 census who moved.

Mr. Schachter said people in their 20's and early 30's are the most apt to move. Rates decline until retirement age, then increase especially after age 85, when many people either are moved to nursing homes or closer to family members.