Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, June 9, 1993                   TAG: 9306090069
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A6   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Medium

IN MANY PLACES, MINORITIES HAVE BECOME MAJORITY

The Census Bureau grouped America's racial minorities along with Hispanics to calculate the minority share of the population.

The agency classifies blacks, Asians, Pacific Islanders, American Indians, Eskimos and Aleuts as racial minorities.

The study of 1990 census data considered the majority to be everyone else - a group called "Anglos" in some places and "non-Hispanic whites" by demographers.

What sorts of places have minority majorities? They're as diverse as the nation itself.

Some are big. Minorities comprise the majority in six of the eight American cities with more than a million people: New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, Detroit and Dallas. Minorities have the biggest share in Detroit - 80 percent.

Some are small and rural, such as Tuskegee, Ala., with 325 white Anglos among 12,257 people.

One American in four belongs to a recognized minority group.

But they're dispersed across the country, and that dilutes minorities' share of the population in the nation's 50,848 localities.

The study found minorities comprised half the population in only one locality out of 24.

Altogether, 186 counties and 1,930 cities, towns and other municipalities were dominated demographically by racial and ethnic minorities.

Some more facts about minorities and America's counties, cities and towns:

County with the fewest Anglos: Starr County, Texas, 2 percent.

States having at least one county where minorities form the majority: 26.

State with the most minority-dominated counties: Texas, 36.