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 a 1975 episode of Mister Rogers Neighborhood, Hamilton said of the Wicked Witch, “Sometimes, Mister Rogers, I’m a little unhappy because lots of children are quite scared by her.” Another of the films stars was often recognized by children who ran away crying! The movie stars Grand Rapids, MN, native Judy Garland as Dorothy Gale, a Kansas farm girl who is transported to the Land of Oz by a tornado. L. Frank Baum’s popular children’s book The Wizard of Oz became one of the most beloved motion pictures in history thanks to a talented cast of lovable characters.

• More recently, Nike’s “Cortez” sneakers played a “supporting role” in 1994’s Academy Award-winning movie Forest Gump.
• 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.
• The addition of a new write-in area for collecting detailed White responses was one of the improvements made to the 2020 Census race question design.
• 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.
• Fearing the film would be unpopular, movie studio executives chose these cities to debut the movie to better gauge audience reaction.
• More detailed data for the nation, states, counties and Puerto Rico are available in our interactive data visualization.

Households and Families

The Census Bureau acts as the collection agent for these surveys, but the data themselves are available through the sponsoring agency. The Census Bureau collected data about libraries—like the public library in Universal City, Texas (pictured above)—as reimbursable projects for the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) and the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES). He also edited President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s official papers, served as West Virginia’s secretary of state, and served in the U.S. His 1957 book The Bridge at Remagen was made into a movie in 1969. He published the first Ilocan language translation of Don Quixote, wrote novels, plays, and founded the Ilokanos Writers Association of the Philippines.Author and historian Ken Hechler worked for the Census Bureau’s population division during the 1940 Census.
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.
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).
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 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.

Data Sources

In 2018, the American Community Survey reported that 285,540 people worked as librarians, curators, and archivists. Library employees not only maintain the books and cataloging systems, but also host story time, meet the author, and literacy events to encourage children to develop a life-long love for reading. American libraries are home to thousands of books written for children. In the years to come, moviegoers can look forward to even more Dr. Seuss-inspired movies, including a film adaptation of Oh, the Places You’ll Go!
There was an average of 3.51 people per household in 1950, substantially higher than the average of 2.61 in 2019. The population under age 18 was 31.0% of the total population in 1950 and would grow to 34.3% in 1970. In some of these cities, the population began climbing again in recent decades. In some cases, the population losses were sizeable, amounting to one half or more of the cities’ 1950 populations. The other eight (Chicago, Philadelphia, Detroit, Baltimore, Cleveland, St Louis, Washington, D.C., and Boston) all saw their decennial populations peak in 1950 and fall in the coming decades. A number of large industrial cities in the Northeast and Midwest hit their peak decennial populations in 1950 and would experience population declines in subsequent decades in both relative and absolute terms.
Fearing the film would be unpopular, movie studio executives chose these cities to debut the movie to better gauge audience reaction. On August 11–12, 1939, the movie The Wizard of Oz premiered in Dennis, MA, Kenosha, WI, and Oconomowoc, WI. In 2021, spending at movie theaters and streaming content at home and on mobile devices reached $36.8 billion. When the movie The Wizard of Oz premiered in August 1939, 85 million Americans watched movies in theaters and spent $659 million every week. Education is one of many topics covered by the survey and the data are not designed to provide a highly detailed look at the many different types of educational arrangements and innovations pursued by households in this unusual school year. Among the 15 largest Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSA), for example, the Boston-Cambridge-Newton, MA-NH MSA, went from 0.9% in the spring of 2020 to 8.9% by the fall.
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.

Over Half of White Population Reported Being English, German or Irish

Other White responses, such as Canadian and Pennsylvania German, represented around 2% of the White alone and White alone or in combination populations. Detailed European responses accounted for 58.8% of the White alone and 56.1% of the White alone or in combination populations. About two-thirds of the White alone and White alone or in combination populations reported a detailed response, such as German, Irish, Lebanese or French Canadian.

• Homeschooling rates are increasing across race groups and ethnicities.
• A number of large industrial cities in the Northeast and Midwest hit their peak decennial populations in 1950 and would experience population declines in subsequent decades in both relative and absolute terms.
• The red sequined “ruby slippers” Judy Garland wore in the 1939 movie The Wizard of Oz are perhaps the most famous footwear in American popular culture.
• California had the largest Irish alone population (803,899), followed by New York (730,165) and Florida (692,142).
• It’s clear that in an unprecedented environment, families are seeking solutions that will reliably meet their health and safety needs, their childcare needs and the learning and socio-emotional needs of their children.

Related Statistics

The addition of a new write-in area for collecting detailed White responses was one of the improvements made to the 2020 Census race question design. Among those who identified as White alone or in combination, English (46.6 million), German (45 million), and Irish (38.6 million) were the largest groups. Together, the English (46.6 million), German (45 million), and Irish (38.6 million) alone or in any combination populations made up over half of the White alone or in combination population in 2020. For the first time ever, respondents to the 2020 Census who reported White as a race could write in more details such as Italian, Palestinian or Cajun. Reimbursable surveys conducted for the National Center for Education Statistics—like the National Teacher and Principal Survey—collect data on the number of schools with libraries and media centers. wino casino For example, the Surveys for the Institute of Museum and Library Services collected data from more than 9,000 libraries in 2022.
The story was much the same in Las Vegas, whose population ballooned from just over 24,000 people in 1950 to 642,000 in 2020. By 2020 Phoenix’s population would reach 1.6 million, making it the country’s fifth largest city. Phoenix had just over 100,000 people in 1950 and ranked 99th in population among cities. By 2020, the share of the county’s population in Chicago had fallen to 52%. By 1970, as suburbanization boomed, that share had slipped to 61% and Chicago’s population had declined somewhat.
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.

Frequently Occurring Surnames from the 2010 Census

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. 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.