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Hispanic diversity in Florida

Charts showing how diverse the Hispanic communities are in some Florida counties. There are more statistics on the second page.

Map of Florida

1Pinellas County
Hispanic (73,241) 8.0%
Largest Groups
Mexicans 2.4%
Puerto Ricans 2.4%
Among Florida’s largest counties, Pinellas and Duval, with 7.6% of its residents Hispanic, have the smallest Hispanic populations as a percentage of the total.

2Hillsborough County
Hispanic (306,635) 24.9%
Largest Groups
Puerto Ricans 7.4%
Cubans 5.3%
Mexicans 5.3%
Hillsborough has the state’s largest percentage of Spaniards — .7% of its population.

3St. Johns County
Hispanic (9,972) 5.2%
Largest Groups
Puerto Ricans 1.6%
Mexicans 1.0%

4Orange County
Hispanic (308,244) 26.9%
Largest Groups
Puerto Ricans 13.0%
Mexicans 3.2%
4% of the county’s population is from South America.

5Osceola County
Hispanic (122,146) 45.5%
Largest Groups
Puerto Ricans 27.2%
Dominicans 3.8%
Colombians 2.8%
5.6% of the county’s population is from South America.

6Okeechobee County
Hispanic (9,561) 23.9%
Largest Groups
Mexicans 18.9%
Puerto Ricans 1.3%
Cubans 1.3%

7Palm Beach County
Hispanic (250,823) 19.0%
Largest Groups
Mexicans 3.7%
Cubans 3.3%
Puerto Ricans 3.0%
3.8% of the county’s population is from South America.

8Broward County
Hispanic (438,247) 25.1%
Largest Groups
Cubans 4.8%
Puerto Ricans 4.3%
Colombians 3.8%
Collectively, South Americans make up 8.4% of the county’s population.

9Miami-Dade County
Hispanic (1,623,859) 65.0%
Largest Groups:
Cubans 34.3%
Colombians 4.6%
Nicaraguans 4.2%
11% of the county’s population is South American. Miami has the largest number of Dominicans, 58,000, and Costa Ricans, 6,736.

10Monroe County
Hispanic (15,071) 20.6%
Largest Group
Cubans 11.3%

11Collier County
Hispanic (83,177) 25.9%
Largest Groups
Mexicans 12.1%
Cubans 5.3%

12Hendry County
Hispanic (19,243) 49.2%
Largest Group
Mexicans 33.8%

13Lee County
Hispanic (113,308) 18.3%
Largest Groups
Mexicans 5.5%
Puerto Ricans 4.0%
Cubans 3.3%

14DeSoto County
Hispanic (10,425) 29.9%
Largest Group
Mexicans 25.9%

15Hardee County
Hispanic (11,895) 42.9%
Largest Group
Mexicans 37.0%

 

 

 

 

NEXT PAGE: More statistics

» Some 22% — 4.22 million — of Florida’s residents are Hispanic, but they are not evenly distributed throughout the state. More than half live in Miami-Dade, Broward, Palm Beach and Orange counties.

» Among Florida’s larger cities, Orlando and Fort Lauderdale most closely resemble the statewide demographic averages of 62% non-Hispanic whites, 22% Hispanic and 16% African-American.

» Among Florida’s larger cities, Jacksonville has the lowest percentage of Hispanics — 8%, while Miami has the highest — 66%.

» The state’s Hispanic population grew by more than 57% between 2000 and 2010.

» Cubans (1.2 million) have been the political and social face of Hispanic Florida since 1960 and are still the largest Hispanic group in Florida.

» Future in-flows and out-flows of Hispanics depend on the interplay of unpredictable factors such as the Florida economy, the economy of Puerto Rico, the birth rate in Mexico, Argentina’s political leadership and Venezuela after Hugo Chavez.

» The population distribution of Hispanic Floridians today has about as much to do with the Spanish colonial era as the population distribution of Floridians in general has to do with life here before air conditioning. The counties most associated with Spanish colonial settlement and missions — St. Johns, Escambia, Leon and Nassau — have some of the lowest Hispanic populations in Florida, 5.2%, 4.7%, 5.6% and 3.2%, respectively.