The star on the state flag of Texas may be white, but Texans come in a broad mix of colors. Texas is the newest addition to a group of five majority-minority states in which minority groups constitute a majority of the population. As this map of the 254 counties in Texas shows, a minority of counties - though some of the most populous in the state - have majority-minority populations.
The map also shows those counties in which the percentage of the county population for a particular
minority group exceeds the statewide percentage for that group. The resulting patterns make historical and
geographic sense. American Indians, though only about 1.1 percent of the state's population, concentrate more
heavily along the Oklahoma border where many Texas tribes were forced to relocate in the nineteenth century.
African-Americans, about 12.1 percent of the state's population, are more heavily concentrated in east Texas
counties with closer ties to the old South and historically the largest enslaved populations. The rapidly growing
Asian population, about 3.5 percent of the total, has tended to settle in the big urban centers of Houston and
Dallas, and also in coastal regions. Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders, a miniscule 0.2 percent of the population, are
more concentrated in Coryell and Bell counties, home to Fort Hood and its myriad service personnel. Hispanics, at 35
percent of the Texas population, are concentrated particularly in western, southern, and border counties where most
majority-minority counties are located. Many of these counties are not just majority-minority but majority Hispanic. |
