Demographics of Virginia

The demographics of Virginia are the various elements used to describe the population of the Commonwealth of Virginia and are studied by various government and non-government organizations. Virginia is the 12th-most populous state in the United States with over 8 million residents and is the 35th largest in area.

As of the 2010 United States Census, Virginia has a reported population of 8,001,024, which is an increase of 288,933, or 3.6%, from a previous estimate in 2007 and an increase of 922,509, or 13.0%, since the year 2000. This includes an increase from net migration of 314,832 people into the Commonwealth from 2000-2007. Immigration from outside the United States resulted in a net increase of 159,627 people, and migration within the country produced a net increase of 155,205 people. Also in 2009, 6.7% of Virginia's population were reported as under five years old, 23.4% under eighteen, and 12.1% were senior citizens-65+. The center of population of Virginia is located in Goochland County outside of Richmond.

The five largest reported ancestry groups in Virginia are: African (19.6%), German (11.7%), American (11.4%), English (11.1%), and Irish (9.8%). Most of those claiming to be of "American" ancestry are actually of English descent, but have family that has been in the country for so long, in many cases since the early seventeenth century, that they choose to identify simply as "American". Many of Virginia's African population are descended from enslaved Africans who worked its tobacco, cotton, and hemp plantations. Initially, these slaves came from west central Africa, primarily Angola. During the eighteenth century, however, about half of them were derived from various ethnicities located in the Niger Delta region of modern-day Nigeria. They contributed strongly to the development of Southern culinary arts, music, vernacular, architecture, and religion. With continued immigration to Virginia of other European groups and the 19th-century sales of tens of thousands of enslaved Africans from Virginia to the Deep South, the percent of enslaved Africans fell from once being half of the total population. By 1860 slaves comprised 31% of the state's population of 1.6 million.

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