HispanicBusiness

Even though Hispanics are listed as only 15.1 percent of the population in the United States, a study released today shows that between 2000 and 2007, Hispanics accounted for just over 50 percent of the total growth in U.S. population. The survey, released by the Pew Hispanic Center in Washington D.C., says this report is a "significant new demographic milestone for the nation's largest minority group."

Statistics in the analysis, "Latino Settlement in the New Century," are presented both as total numbers and as percentages. It contains a series of Web-based interactive maps that illustrate the size and spread of Hispanic population growth since 1980, including easy access to detailed state and county-level data. It also displays a list of the counties with the largest Hispanic populations, as well as a directory of those counties with the fastest-growing Hispanic populations.

According to the report, there are two changes from Hispanic population growth in the 1990s. While Hispanics accounted for just under 40 percent of the nation's population growth then, much of the current growth is from natural increase of the existing population, which is births minus deaths, rather than international migration.

The analysis also shows the 676 counties where Hispanic growth is greatest. This list includes areas where the Hispanic population numbers at least 1,000 persons, plus has had at least 41 percent growth compared to the 1990s.

The regions with the greatest growth in numbers -- more than 400,000 each -- were three counties that already had sizable Hispanic populations, Los Angeles, Maricopa (Phoenix), and Harris (Houston). But, on a percentage basis, the three counties exceeding 300 percent in growth are Frederick and Culpeper counties in Virginia and Paulding County in Georgia.

In fact, since 2000, Virginia and Georgia also contain eight of the 10 counties with the highest percentage growth in the Hispanic population. The other two counties are Kendall County in Illinois and Luzerne County in Pennsylvania.

There are also 148 counties that were not affected by rapid growth in the 1990s that now have seen a sizeable increase in Hispanic population. This shows that while the South still had a greater share of overall Hispanic population growth than any other region, the West and Northeast also have experienced more growth than in the 1990s.

In addition, the study shows how much of the Hispanic population growth over the past decade has taken place in small and mid-sized cities and suburbs that had few or no Hispanic residents in the past. Overall, Hispanic population growth since 2000 has been widespread, escalating in almost 3,000 of the nation's 3,141 counties.

While a large number of areas have seen increases, the principal amount, or 79 percent of the Hispanic population, resides in just 178 counties, while 73 percent are concentrated in 100 of the largest Hispanic counties.

Comparatively, the geographic concentration of Hispanics is greater than the nation's black population. Nearly six-in-ten (59 percent) of the non-Hispanic black population lives in the nation's 100 largest non-Hispanic black counties.

The report, conducted by Richard Fry, senior research associate, and Jeffrey Passel, senior demographer, Pew Hispanic Center, is available on the Center's Web site, www.pewhispanic.org. Founded in 2001, the Pew Hispanic Center is a project of the Pew Research Center, a nonpartisan organization seeking to improve understanding of the U.S. Hispanic population and to chronicle the growing impact on the nation. The Center, funded by The Pew Charitable Trusts, a public charity based in Philadelphia, does not take positions on policy issues.