The population of the Pine Bluff metropolitan area has increased in the last three years, according to the Arkansas Bureau of Labor Statistics. In the first three months of 2015, 1,633 more people left the city than moved in, compared with the same period a year ago, the office said.

Pine Bluff is part of a three-county MSA district as defined by the U.S. Census Bureau, which includes Jefferson, Cleveland and Lincoln. The census statistics do not reflect the population of the metropolitan area, which consists of Jefferson and Cleveland, nor the total population of the three counties.

The Pine Bluff area is also part of the Jefferson - Cleveland - Lincoln Combined Statistical Area, which had 902,443 residents, according to the 2014 census. PineBluff is home to the Arkansas State University of Arkansas, the state's only public university. It is a large university with more than 1,000 students and a campus with a total area of 1.5 million square meters.

A report by 24 / 7 Wall St. ranked Pine Bluff as one of the largest metropolitan areas in the country to lose population in 2019. According to statistics, the PineBluff metro area has more than 1.5 million people, or about 2 percent of Arkansas' population. In recent years, Pineblood's decaying downtown has come under the spotlight, with several buildings along Main Street's corridor collapsing in 2014. One of these most distinctive dilapidated buildings is the Pines Hotel on Main Street, which was one of the best hotels in Arkansas when it opened in 1913.

The bluff was settled in 1819, with the bluff overlooking the Arkansas River, and Pine Bluff became a county town in August 1832, becoming one of the first cities in Arkansas to allow steamboats to dock on the river.

The economy was made of wood and cotton, and Pine Bluff became a commercial and economic center of the Arkansas Delta. Land transportation was improved by the state-funded Columbia, Arkansas, Missouri and Missouri River Railroad, which ran through PineBluff. State road construction programs, which were later introduced in the 1920s and early 1930s, were also critical to Jefferson County.

Because of its proximity to the Arkansas River, the small town served as a port for travel and shipping. With the arrival of the railroad in 1873, Pine Bluff became a freight point for the railroad along the river. Highway bridges and the Lock and Dam 4 were completed in the 1930s, forming a transportation system radiating from PineBluff. A freeway bridge over Lock & Dam # 4 has been completed to provide transportation between the city and the railroad line and its terminus at Fort Smith, Arkansas, on the Missouri River. The highway bridges over the lock and dam 4 were completed in the mid-1930s to provide a transit link for the transportation systems that radiated from Pine Bluff to the Mississippi River Valley.

After the proclamation of emancipation in early 1863, Pine Bluff attracted many refugees and libertarians, but a surprisingly large number of citizens opposed secession. When the Union troops occupied Little Rock, a group of PineBluff citizens asked Major General Frederick Steele to send Union troops to occupy and protect the city.

The United States Corps of Engineers was persuaded to build a levee across the street from Pine Bluff to allow the river to flow into the city. The steep slope provided enough water to support the first pine cress at the mouth of the rivers.

The Arkansas River was a constant threat to the city, eating itself ashore and lying just a few hundred yards from the courthouse in 1908. In October 1844, a tidal wave of more than 1,000 cubic metres of water devastated the city's economy.

Pine Bluffs' first utility was founded in 1844, when the Pine Bluffs Gas Company began supplying manufactured gas and coke for lighting. In 1845, she founded the first gas company in the United States and the only one in Arkansas at the time. The first supply company for the Pine Bluffs was not established until 1846, when it began to supply gases and coke for a litre of fuel, both for lighting and electricity.

A few years later James Scull, also of the Arkansas Post, came and set up a warehouse in Pine Bluffs in 1846 for the construction of a kraft paper factory. Dierks Lumber announced the construction of the k Kraft paper mill, followed shortly after by International Paper Co., which bought the first paper mill in Arkansas and the second in New York City.

Indigenous peoples of different cultures have inhabited the area along the Arkansas River for thousands of years. The Indians signed the last of their tribal lands at Major John Harrington's Lodge, which is said to be located in Jefferson County on the north shore of Arkansas.