Hispanics contribute to increasing diversity in rural America

While the overall nonmetro population grew 4.5 percent in the 2000s, the nonmetro Hispanic population increased 45 percent. And Hispanic population growth was not confined to areas with large Hispanic concentrations in the Southwest. On a percentage basis, growth was significantly higher throughout much of the Southeast, Midwest, and Northwest. Hispanic populations more than doubled in most nonmetro counties in the South and in many otherwise slow-growing or declining sections of the Nation's Heartland. In 228 nonmetro counties, overall population loss was avoided because Hispanic population growth more than offset non-Hispanic population decline. This map is found in the December 2011 issue of Amber Waves magazine.