In a previous post in celebration of Hispanic Heritage Month, we have observed the rapid growth of the Hispanic or Latino population in the Atlanta region. How does our story compare to those of other top metros?
To investigate this question, we will utilize Decennial Census data and the Census Bureau’s latest population estimates.
Figure 1 presents the top 20 Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs) in the country,[1] sorted by percent Hispanic or Latino as of 2024.
Figure 1: Percent Hispanic or Latino for the 20 Largest MSAs, 1980-2024
This graph reveals that all major metros have had significant growth in their percent Hispanic or Latino populations since 1980. Despite strong growth in our region, Atlanta[2] is actually in the bottom 25% in terms of percent Hispanic among the nation’s top metros. In general, metros that started with a large percentage of Hispanic population in 1980 have grown to have the largest percentages today as well (r =.88 ).[3] Noteworthy exceptions are Riverside and Miami, which leapfrogged Los Angeles to claim the top two spots and Orlando, which with 4% Hispanic was similar to Tampa and Washington, DC in 1980, but is on a par with San Diego today with about 35% Hispanic population.
Notes:
[1] Regular 33n readers and geography nerds know that Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs), a type of core-based statistical area, are formed of groups of counties and that their definitions change over time. To maintain comparability over time, we aggregate historical county-level data to MSA utilizing their current delineations (released in July 2023).
[2] Eagle-eyed readers will notice that the percent Hispanic numbers reported for Atlanta are a bit lower from those found in the first post in this series. That is because we concentrated on the 11-County ARC region in the first post, while this post utilizes the current 29-county MSA to maximize comparability with other top metros.
[3] Just as a refresher: correlations like Pearson’s r range between 0 and 1 in absolute value. A correlation of -1 represents a perfect negative relationship, a value of 1 denotes a perfect positive relationship, and a value of zero means there is no relationship.
Download the data utilized in Figure 1: Hispanic Time Series Top 20 Metros.