 As of 2019, the Office of Financial Management estimates that the current population was 14,219.On November 10, 2002, East Wenatchee was designated a principal city of the Wenatchee−East Wenatchee Metropolitan Statistical Area by the Office of Management and Budget.At the turn of the 20th Century irrigation projects, including the Columbia Basin Project east of the region, fostered the development of intensive agriculture in the shrub-steppe native to the region.