Census: US Becoming Less White, More Urban
Hispanic, or Latino, population fastest growing segment
The population of the United States is becoming more diverse, less white and more urban than it was a decade ago.
These are among the notable trends highlighted Thursday by the US Census Bureau, which has begun releasing information from the 2020 decennial census.
The white population remained the largest race or ethnicity group in the United States, with 204.3 million people identifying as white alone. Overall, 235.4 million people reported white alone or in combination with another group. However, the white alone population decreased by 8.6 percent since 2010.
The Hispanic or Latino population, which includes people of any race, was 62.1 million in 2020. The Hispanic or Latino population grew 23 percent, while the population that was not of Hispanic or Latino origin grew 4.3 percent since 2010.
Demographers and sociologists have predicted for some time now that the nation's white population would continue to shrink in proportion to other ethnicities — and the white population will become a minority in the United States within the coming decades.
“As the country has grown, we have continued to evolve in how we measure the race and ethnicity of the people who live here,” said Nicholas Jones, director and senior advisor for race and ethnicity research and outreach at the Census Bureau. “Today’s release of 2020 Census redistricting data provides a new snapshot of the racial and ethnic composition and diversity of the country. The improvements we made to the 2020 Census yield a more accurate portrait of how people self-identify in response to two separate questions on Hispanic origin and race, revealing that the U.S. population is much more multiracial and more diverse than what we measured in the past.”
Thursday’s release reveals changes in the size and distribution of the population across the United States. The population of U.S. metro areas grew by 9 percent from 2010 to 2020, resulting in 86 percent of the population living in U.S. metro areas in 2020, compared to 85 percent in 2010.
“Many counties within metro areas saw growth, especially those in the south and west. However, as we’ve been seeing in our annual population estimates, our nation is growing slower than it used to,” said Marc Perry, a senior demographer at the Census Bureau. “This decline is evident at the local level where around 52% of the counties in the United States saw their 2020 Census populations decrease from their 2010 Census populations.”
County and metro area highlights:
The largest county in the United States in 2020 remains Los Angeles County with over 10 million people.
The largest city (incorporated place) in the United States in 2020 remains New York with 8.8 million people.
312 of the 384 U.S. metro areas gained population between 2010 and 2020.
The fastest-growing U.S. metro area between the 2010 Census and 2020 Census was The Villages, Fla., which grew 39% from about 93,000 people to about 130,000 people.
72 U.S. metro areas lost population from the 2010 Census to the 2020 Census. The U.S. metro areas with the largest percentage declines were Pine Bluff, Ark., and Danville, Ill, at -12.5 percent and -9.1 percent, respectively.
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