This article is part of a series and ongoing reporting on Latinx communities in North Carolina. Click here to read more.
Terminology note: The U.S. Census Bureau introduced the term Hispanic in 1980 and this is a term preferred by some Hispanic/Latino populations. The term Latino became more commonly used in the 1990s and is preferred by others. Most recently, younger Latinas and Latinos have introduced the more gender-neutral term Latinx. In these materials, we use the terms Hispanic and Latino interchangeably.
North Carolina’s Hispanic population is nearing 1 million, with 997,000 residents in 2018. The state’s Hispanic/Latino population grew from just over 75,000 in 1990 to 800,000 in 2010. Between 2010 and 2018, the U.S. Census Bureau estimates that North Carolina’s Hispanic population grew by 197,000 new residents, an increase of 24.6%, faster than the growth of this population nationwide (18.6%).
For more data on North Carolina’s Hispanic/Latino community, watch the presentation below, which was given in September 2019.
For more details on North Carolina’s Hispanic population, read this blog post and download this one-page data snapshot from Carolina Demography.
