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Despite Growing Diversity, Whites Remain Majority In U.S.: Census
WASHINGTON, Aug 13 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Despite growing racial diversity in the United States, the 2000 Census shows that whites remain the largest racial group in the country.
Nearly 217 million people, or 77% of the total population of over 280 million, reported their racial makeup as white, or white mixed with one other race.
In 1990, African-Americans made up 12.1% - with all other racial categories falling far below - of the total population of the country, which at the time was almost 250 million.
Although there are 4,672,130 more African-Americans in 2000 than in 1990, according to census data, the percentage of the total population remained steady, rising only to 12.3%.
The data comes from tables comparing "race alone" answers with tables comparing "race alone and in combination" answers, which include persons who marked their race as mixed with more than one of the six race groups used to define the American population.
Census data on race cannot be directly compared to data from earlier surveys because the year 2000 marked the first time respondents were permitted to mark more than one race on their questionnaires.
Tables describing comparisons between 1990 and 2000 data used each of the "race alone" and "race alone or in combination" categories in 2000 for separate comparisons with the 1990 data, which did not allow for combinations.
The census showed that whites were the largest racial group in every state but Hawaii, with the widest majority (83.6%) being found in the Midwest. The Western United States had the lowest white population across the region at 68.5%, and the South had 72.6%.
In eight states, whites made up less than 70% of the population, including in Hawaii, California, Georgia and New Mexico. Some 32% of respondents living in the capital city of Washington D.C. reported themselves as white.
Among cities with populations larger than 100,000, Livonia, Michigan had the highest proportion of whites, at 97% - with the state's nearby capital city, Detroit, having the second-highest nationwide percentage of African-Americans at 81.6%.
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