States with the highest number of African Americans *

All figures come from the U.S. Census Bureau Report.

The Census Bureau defines ancestry as a person's ethnic origin, racial heritage, descent, or "roots," which may reflect their place of birth, place of birth of parents or ancestors, and ethnic identities that have evolved within the United States.

African Americans in America: "African Americans" are defined as people who marked their ethnic origin as "African American" on the Census survey in 1990 and/or 2000.

* Highest number as percentage of region population not total population.

State/Region (2000 population)	% of Region's Population	Total Population
District of Columbia (572,059)	43.4	248,274
Mississippi (2,844,658)	28.3	805,038
Louisiana (4,468,976)	25.5	1,139,589
South Carolina (4,012,012)	22.8	914,739
Georgia (8,186,453)	21.6	1,768,274
Maryland (5,296,486)	20.5	1,085,780
Alabama (4,447,100)	19.9	884,973
North Carolina (8,049,313)	16.6	1,336,186
Virginia (7,078,515)	14.9	1,054,699
South * (100,236,820)	14	14,033,155
Delaware (783,600)	14	109,704
Tennessee (5,689,283)	13	739,607
Arkansas (2,673,400)	11.9	318,135
Illinois (12,419,293)	11.5	1,428,219
Michigan (9,938,444)	11	1,093,229
Ohio (11,353,140)	9.1	1,033,136
United States * (281,421,906)	8.8	24,765,128
New Jersey (8,414,350)	8.8	740,463
Missouri (5,595,211)	8.8	492,379
Texas (20,851,820)	8.7	1,814,108
Florida (15,982,378)	8.6	1,374,485
Midwest * (64,392,776)	7.8	5,022,637
New York (18,976,457)	7.7	1,461,187
Pennsylvania (12,281,054)	7.4	908,798
Northeast * (53,594,378)	6.5	3,483,635
Indiana (6,080,485)	6.5	395,232
Kentucky (4,041,769)	5.7	230,381
California (33,871,648)	5.1	1,727,454

People in America Series: States with the highest number of African Americans

"-": Rounds to 0.0.

Some ancestries are general may encompass several ancestries not listed separately (i.e., African American, White).

"NS": Not statistically different from zero at the 90-percent confidence level.

Notes: Because of sampling error, the estimates in this table may not be significantly different from one another or from other ancestries not listed in this table.

People who reported two ancestries were included once in each category. The estimates in this table differ slightly in some cases from the estimates in other data products due to the collapsing schemes used. For example, here German does not include Bavarian. Some groups correspond to groups identified separately in the race and Hispanic-origin questions. The race item provides the primary source of data for White, Black, American Indian, Alaska Native, Asian groups, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander groups. The Hispanic-origin question is the primary identifier for Mexican, Puerto Rican, Cuban, and other Hispanic groups.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau, 1990 Census and Census 2000 special tabulations.

Table key

Data derived from the U.S. Bureau of the Census (2010).

Count Number of occurrences: Estimate of the number of people with the surname in the United States. (s) means the data was suppressed for privacy.
#/100K Occurrences / 100,000 people: The number of occurrences of a given surname per 100,000 in the United States.
% White % Non-Hispanic White Only: Percentage of people with a given surname who classified themselves as "non-hispanic white" (race)
% Black % Non-Hispanic Black Only: Percentage of people with a given surname who classified themselves as "non-hispanic black" (race)
% API % Non-Hispanic Asian & Pacific Islander Only: Percentage of people with a given surname who classified themselves as "non-hispanic Asian & Pacific Islander" (race)
% AIAN % Non-Hispanic American Indian & Alaskan Native Only: Percentage of people with a given surname who classified themselves as "non-hispanic American Indian & Alaskan Native" (race)
% 2 or More Races % Non-Hispanic of 2 or More Races: Percentage of people with a given surname who classified themselves as "non-hispanic two or more races" (race)
% Hispanic % Hispanic Origin: Percentage of people with a given surname who classified themselves as "Hispanic origin" (race)
Rank in 2010
Count in 2010 Number of occurrences: Estimate of the number of people with the surname in the United States according to the 2000 census.
% Change % Change between 2000 and 2010
Rank change Change in rank between 2000 and 2010