Demographics

Main article: Demographics of Texas

Historical population
Census	Pop.		%±
1850	212,592		—
1860	604,215		184.2%
1870	818,579		35.5%
1880	1,591,749		94.5%
1890	2,235,527		40.4%
1900	3,048,710		36.4%
1910	3,896,542		27.8%
1920	4,663,228		19.7%
1930	5,824,715		24.9%
1940	6,414,824		10.1%
1950	7,711,194		20.2%
1960	9,579,677		24.2%
1970	11,196,730		16.9%
1980	14,229,191		27.1%
1990	16,986,510		19.4%
2000	20,851,820		22.8%
2010	25,145,561		20.6%
Est. 2016	27,862,596		10.8%
1910 – 2010 census[191] 2016 Estimate[4]

Texas population density map.

The United States Census Bureau estimates that the population of Texas was 27,469,114 on July 1, 2015, a 9.24 percent increase since the 2010 United States Census.^[4]
As of 2004, the state had 3.5 million foreign-born residents (15.6 percent of the state population), of which an estimated 1.2 million are illegal. Texas from 2000 to 2006 had the fastest growing illegal immigration rate in the nation.^[192] In 2010, illegal immigrants constituted an estimated 6.0 percent of the population. This was the fifth highest percentage of any state in the country.^[193][194] In 2015, the population of illegal immigrants living in Texas was around 0.8 million.^[195]
Texas' Rio Grande Valley is ground zero for illegal immigration across the Southwest border. According to a June 2014 Los Angeles Times article, illegal immigrants are arriving at a rate of more than 35,000 a month. It is expected that the number of minors traveling alone from Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador is growing and will reach up to 90,000 by the end of 2014.^[196] Hondurans, Salvadorans, and Guatemalans make up roughly 75% of illegal immigrants in South Texas.^[197][198]
Texas's population density is 34.8 persons/km² which is slightly higher than the average population density of the U.S. as a whole, at 31 persons/km². In contrast, while Texas and France are similarly sized geographically, the European country has a population density of 116 persons/km².
Two-thirds of all Texans live in a major metropolitan area such as Houston. The Dallas-Fort Worth Metropolitan Area is the largest in Texas. While Houston is the largest city in Texas and the fourth largest city in the United States, the Dallas-Fort Worth metropolitan area is larger than that of Houston.

Race and ethnicity

According to the 2010 United States census, the racial composition of Texas was the following:^[199]

• White American 70.4 percent (Non-Hispanic whites 45.3 percent)
• Black or African American: 11.8 percent
• American Indian: 0.7 percent
• Asian: 3.8 percent (1.0 percent Indian, 0.8 percent Vietnamese, 0.6 percent Chinese, 0.4 percent Filipino, 0.3 percent Korean, 0.1 percent Japanese, 0.6 percent Other Asian)
• Pacific Islander: 0.1 percent
• Some other race: 10.5 percent
• Two or more races: 2.7 percent

In addition, 37.6 percent of the population are Hispanic or Latino (of any race) (31.6 percent Mexican, 0.9 percent Salvadoran, 0.5 percent Puerto Rican, 0.4 percent Honduran, 0.3 percent Guatemalan 0.3 percent Spaniard, 0.2 percent Colombian, 0.2 percent Cuban)^[200]
As of 2011, 69.8% of the population of Texas younger than age 1 were minorities (meaning that they had at least one parent who was not non-Hispanic white).^[201]