But in the coming decades, nearly all increases in the metropolitan share of the population would stem from growth in the suburbs. The share of the population in metro areas was 56.1% in 1950, with 32.8% in central cities and 23.3% living in suburbs. Of the nation’s 10 largest cities in 1950, only New York and Los Angeles would have bigger populations in 2020. The Technical Documentation PDF 10.6 MB provides more information on data quality and how the Census Bureau collects, codes and tabulates statistics on race and Hispanic or Latino origin. Although there is a great deal of diversity in the detailed White groups, many of the largest groups are also broadly distributed across the United States. The county with the largest Norwegian population (135,077) was Hennepin, Minnesota, which includes Minneapolis.
Table 2 shows the 10 counties (with 5,000 or more total population) with the highest DI in 2020 and their scores in 2010. Of the states listed here, Maryland had the largest DI gain, increasing from 60.7% in 2010 to 67.3% in 2020. Table 1 shows the 10 states with the highest DI in the 2020 Census and their 2020 and 2010 census values. More detailed data for the nation, states, counties and Puerto Rico are available in our interactive data visualization. Our recent blog, Measuring Racial and Ethnic Diversity for the 2020 Census, includes detailed information about these specific diversity measures and how to interpret them.
The 1950 Census might have been the last census your grandparents filled out before moving from the city to the suburbs. Aurora, Colo., meanwhile, was a small suburb of Denver with just 11,000 people. The rankings of cities by population were considerably different in 1950 prior to the trends in regional migration and suburbanization. Its population would more than quadruple to 439,000 in the next 10 years. Only three of the country’s 10 largest cities in 1950 (Los Angeles, Baltimore, and Washington, D.C.) were in the South or West.
For the District of Columbia, the difference in the size of the Black or African American alone non-Hispanic population (40.9%) and the wino casino White alone non-Hispanic population (38.0%) narrowed dramatically in 2020 with only a 2.9 percentage point difference. In Texas, the first- and second-most prevalent group rankings did not change between 2010 and 2020, but the difference in size between the White alone non-Hispanic population (39.7%) and the Hispanic or Latino population (39.3%) shrank to 0.4 percentage points. In Wisconsin, the Hispanic or Latino population (7.6%) became the second-most prevalent group, surpassing the Black or African American alone non-Hispanic population (6.2%). You can explore the Diversity Index for all states and counties by interacting with the data visualization.
In 1984, his novel The Natural was adapted to a popular movie.Thelma Strabel worked as a census taker before the Saturday Evening Post magazine serialized her 1940 novel Reap the Wild Wind. Our most recent census counted 331,449,281 people as of April 1, 2020. You can learn more about the Wizard of Oz and its cast using census data and records.
In addition, we decided to continue using this racial and ethnic cross-tabulation because it is commonly used by the Census Bureau and other data users. These diversity calculations require the use of mutually exclusive racial and ethnic (nonoverlapping) categories. The overall racial and ethnic diversity of the country has increased since 2010, according to U.S. Today’s companion America Counts story on the overview of race and ethnicity explains that differences in overall racial distributions are largely due to design improvements in the two separate questions for race data collection and processing, as well as some demographic changes over the past 10 years.
- A value close to 1 indicates that almost everyone in the population has different racial and ethnic characteristics.
- These demographic changes as well as improvements to the ways in which race and ethnicity data are collected and processed reveal the U.S. population is more racially and ethnically diverse than measured in 2010.
- By 2020, Aurora’s population had skyrocketed to around 386,000, making it the 51st largest city in the country surpassing Cleveland (population around 373,000), then ranked 54th.
- The Italian alone population was concentrated in New York and New Jersey.
- In addition, we decided to continue using this racial and ethnic cross-tabulation because it is commonly used by the Census Bureau and other data users.
- You can explore the Diversity Index for all states and counties by interacting with the data visualization.
Large Cities Still Largely in Northeast and Midwest
The 2020 Census used the required two separate questions (one for Hispanic or Latino origin and one for race) to collect the races and ethnicities of the U.S. population — following the standards set by the U.S. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites. A decennial census is, after all, a collection of data on every individual in the United States. By 2020, Aurora’s population had skyrocketed to around 386,000, making it the 51st largest city in the country surpassing Cleveland (population around 373,000), then ranked 54th. For instance, Cleveland in 1950 had about 915,000 people and was the nation’s seventh-largest city.
English Most Common Race or Ethnicity in 2020 Census
There is more variation in the map for the second-most prevalent racial or ethnic group. Figures 2 and 3 show the most and second-most prevalent racial or ethnic groups by county in 2020. In West Virginia, the Multiracial non-Hispanic population (4.0%) became the second-most prevalent group, surpassing the Black or African American alone non-Hispanic population (3.6%). This calculation tells us how diverse and “diffused” the population is relative to the largest groups.
Changes in Relative Rankings of Cities
English alone or in any combination was the largest detailed White group in approximately two-thirds (2,050) of the counties in the United States and Puerto Rico. The Italian alone population was concentrated in New York and New Jersey. The next largest groups were Pennsylvania German, Cajun, and Australian (Figure 2). An additional 11 detailed White alone or in any combination groups had at least 1 million people, including Swedish (3.8 million), Norwegian (3.8 million), and Dutch (3.6 million) (Figure 1). Middle Eastern and North African responses, such as Lebanese, Iranian, and Egyptian, represented over 1% of the White alone and White alone or in combination populations.
The largest Italian population (360,345) was in Suffolk County, New York on Long Island. The largest Irish population (567,668) was in Cook County, Illinois, home to Chicago. Maricopa County, Arizona, home to Phoenix, had the largest English and German populations of all counties in the nation (620,199 and 639,586 respectively). Louisiana had the largest French alone population (136,390), or 5.1% of its total White alone population, followed closely by California (127,756), Massachusetts (111,502), Florida (107,687) and Texas (105,770). Illinois had the largest number of people who identified as Polish alone (352,882), followed by New York (274,580), Michigan (256,398), Pennsylvania (206,264), and Florida (160,119). California had the largest Irish alone population (803,899), followed by New York (730,165) and Florida (692,142).
Census Detailed Demographic and Housing Characteristics File A on America Counts
Here we present highlights on racial and ethnic diversity from the 2020 Census and explain what each measure tells us about the nation’s population. The White alone non-Hispanic population was the largest — or most prevalent — racial or ethnic group for most counties in the United States. In 2020, the Hispanic or Latino population became the largest racial or ethnic group in California, comprising 39.4% of the total population, up from 37.6% in 2010. The remaining racial and ethnic groups combined to make up 11.4% of the total population, representing the diffusion score. The higher the score, the less concentrated the population is in the three largest race and ethnic groups. We also calculate the diffusion score, which measures the combined percentage of all racial and ethnic groups that are not in the first-, second- or third-largest racial and ethnic group.
In short, the country had not yet been impacted by most of the major postwar demographic and economic trends that would greatly change the size, shape and composition of the U.S. population. In hindsight, we can now see that on many demographic fronts the U.S. population in 1950 looked more like the country in 1940 than the rapidly growing, youthful nation to come in 1960 or 1970. With little housing construction during the prior two decades, the nation’s population mostly lived in cities and rural areas, often in crowded conditions. Italian was also the largest group in St. Bernard Parish, Louisiana, New Haven County, Connecticut and Guaynabo Municipio, Puerto Rico.
- Table 2 shows the 10 counties (with 5,000 or more total population) with the highest DI in 2020 and their scores in 2010.
- The concept of “diversity” we use refers to the representation and relative size of different racial and ethnic groups within a population and is maximized when all groups are represented in an area and have equal shares of the population.
- With little housing construction during the prior two decades, the nation’s population mostly lived in cities and rural areas, often in crowded conditions.
- The graphics show the top 15 most popular surnames and those with the largest increase and rank.
- In some of these cities, the population began climbing again in recent decades.
- By 2020 Phoenix’s population would reach 1.6 million, making it the country’s fifth largest city.
- At the time of his death on September 24, 1991, “Dr. Seuss” had sold more than 600 million copies of books that had been translated into dozens of languages for children around the world to enjoy.
As our country’s demographics change and the nation becomes more multiracial, it’s important to understand the composition of the race alone and race alone or in any combination populations. These multiple measures of diversity complement the 2020 Census redistricting data release and enable us to explore the richness and complexity of our nation’s population in a new light. The White alone non-Hispanic population was the most prevalent racial or ethnic group for all states except California (Hispanic or Latino), Hawaii (Asian alone non-Hispanic), New Mexico (Hispanic or Latino), and the District of Columbia, a state equivalent (Black or African American alone non-Hispanic).
Categorizing Race and Ethnicity
From 1790 through 1820, the decennial census was conducted as of the first Monday in August. The 1939 movie The Wizard of Oz was filmed at the Metro Goldwyn-Mayer studios (above) in Culver City, CA, and in Liberal, KS. The Wizard of Oz remains so popular that the 2019 theatrical release of the movie commemorating its 80th anniversary grossed more than $1.2 million! Today, the movie remains a staple of the holiday television schedule with families planning to view the movie together at Thanksgiving and the Winter Holidays.
In Hawaii County, Hawaii, there was a 77.7% chance that two people chosen at random were from different racial or ethnic groups. Again, the way to interpret the DI is that there was a 73.7% chance in Prince William County, Virginia, that two people chosen at random were from different racial or ethnic groups. We explored using alternative racial and ethnic categories for our analysis but found that they did not have a substantial impact on the overall results. The most prevalent racial or ethnic group for the United States was the White alone non-Hispanic population at 57.8%. In data tables, such as the 2020 Census redistricting data tables that provide Hispanic origin by race statistics, we often cross-tabulate the race and Hispanic origin categories to display Hispanic as a single category and the non-Hispanic race groups as categories summing up to the total population. Expectations of what it means for a population to be racially and ethnically diverse may differ.
Home movie audiences had an opportunity to purchase the movie on video tape for the first time in 1980. Frank Baum’s Oz-themed novels have sold since the 1939 premier, and the books and movie remains very popular as new generations are introduced to the story. The Wizard of Oz faced fierce competition at the box office and awards ceremonies, as 1939 is considered to be one of the finest years for movies. Much to their relief, the movie studio executives were able to incorporate these audiences’ reactions into the movie’s worldwide advertising.
Get an alert directly in your inbox to read, share and blog about our newest stories. For more information on how the Census Bureau collects, codes and tabulates statistics on Hispanic or Latino origin and race, explore our 2020 Census subject definitions pages and the 2020 Census Redistricting Technical Documentation. Get tips and tricks on how to access, visualize and use Census Bureau data. In contrast, the District of Columbia’s Black or African American alone non-Hispanic population was 50.0% and the White alone non-Hispanic population was 34.8% in 2010, a difference of 15.2 percentage points.